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I added a thumbs up and sent the text. Placing the phone on the desk, I moved the laptop closer and squared my shoulders, staring at the blank email before me. While lunch with Chelsea was easy to accept, the idea of having one with Julia triggered an alarming amount of stress. But… I could do this. It’d be good too, like drinking a glass of water in between tequila shots. I flipped open my planner and thumbed to next week’s grid. It was wide open, like my legs on their couch. I winced.
I clicked on the REPLY button and forced a breezy and happy tone to come through in the response.
Julia,
Great! I’ll get these online and set up the showings for Thursday. I’d love to meet you at Dante’s for lunch. Are you free next Tuesday? I’m open any time after 11:30.
Elle
There. I hadn’t spent four years in a sorority house without mastering the art of a flippant yet friendly response. I arrowed back and removed the exclamation point after Great, replacing it with a comma. Better. Less desperate.
I was uploading the twenty-second image into MLS when I stopped, thinking back to Chelsea’s text message. Why was she getting waxed? She was in day whatever of her dick drought. She should be growing underarm hair and embracing self-love, or whatever this was about.
On a whim, I opened Instagram, pulling up her feed. Scrolling through her photos, my heart sank with each one.
23
The contracts workshop ran long, putting me in an irritable mood that traffic wasn’t helping. I leaned on my horn, exasperated by the bleach-blonde who was paused in the middle of the crosswalk, smiling for a selfie. Her smile remained fixed as her phone swung left, then right, angling for the best shot. I honked again and she kept the smile in place as she raised her middle finger in my direction. “Tourist bitch,” I muttered.
I tried Easton’s cell for the third time, cursing when it went to voicemail. The girl moved and I hit the gas, my tires squeaking on the pavement as I made it a good quarter of a mile, then hit traffic. I scrolled down to Aaron’s number and considered calling him. A private conversation with him suddenly felt taboo after our three-way, but I was desperate for some inside intel before I walked into lunch with a freshly waxed, dick-deprived Chelsea. I placed the call.
“Hey, Elle.”
“Hey. Look, I’m about to meet Chelsea for lunch.”
“All right.”
I picked at a loose thread on my steering wheel. “Have, you…uh, seen her Instagram?”
“I’m not on Instagram.”
Right. Of course he wasn’t. Up until last year, he’d still had a flip phone because he “didn’t need all that garbage.” Garbage like the Internet and the ability to type a letter without hitting the 5 button multiple times. “Well, there are a lot of photos of you on her feed.”
“You know Chelsea. She likes to take photos.”
This was like talking to a child. A dense, stubborn child. “Yes, but her entire feed is basically you. You’ve topped idiotic memes and inspirational quotes.”
“Okay.”
I sighed. “Has anything happened between you two?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing?” I stressed. “Not a kiss, a grope, a flirt?”
“Flirting is a loose concept. It’s hard for me to say if we’ve flirted.”
I eased my car up a half-length and hit the brakes, then switched tactics. “Have you told her anything about what we did?”
“You mean, that night at your house?”
I sighed in exasperation. “Yes.”
“I told E I wouldn’t. He made me swear to it on my baby niece.”
I sank against the car seat in relief and sent a mental I love you over to E. Aaron was romantically dense and technologically inept, but he was loyal and he kept his promises as if he had a death pact behind them. “Okay. I’m on my way to lunch with her now. I just needed to know.”
I was preparing to hang up when he spoke.
“Elle.”
“Yeah?”
“I just got divorced. I’m not emotionally ready to move into anything right now. Especially with all of the games Becca’s trying to play.”
Games? I suddenly realized that, ever since he had moved out of our house, I’d pretty much abandoned him as a friend. If Becca had been playing games with him, I wasn’t aware of them. My innate instinct to protect him reared its head.
“But there is something with Chelsea. Something I don’t want to mess up.”
“Uh-huh.” I opened a text to Chelsea. Just heard that Becca is screwing with Aaron? Tell me everything at lunch.
She immediately replied. Ugh. I hate that bitch so much. I’m ten minutes away. Are you close?
“And I don’t know how she’d react, if she did find out what happened.”
“Fuck her,” I snapped. “It’s not her business what you’re doing.” I couldn’t believe Becca had the gall to say shit to Aaron—to even have an opinion with Aaron—after everything she’s put him through.
