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My brother was standing by the front door, arguing with a woman I’d never met. A girlfriend? I went over to greet him. “Where the hell have you been?” I asked him. “You’re like an hour late.”
“I got stuck in your fucking elevator! Don’t you ever look at your phone?”
“It’s my engagement party. I’m not staring at my phone.?
?? But I pulled it out and frowned. I had received the text from Krisha, but nothing from Sean. “I don’t even have a text from you.”
“That’s because I told you texting from elevators is dicey,” the woman said, giving Sean an icy stare. “Like it would have killed you just to push the help button?”
This date clearly wasn’t going well. I held my hand out to her. “I’m Michael, by the way.”
She took my hand. “Isla. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard great things about you from Felicia. Your brother, on the other hand, is an asshole.”
“I can verify that,” I said.
“Shut up,” Sean said to me. He shot a look at Isla. “Well, nice meeting you. And yes, I mean that sarcastically. I’m going to get a drink.” He clapped my shoulder. “Congratulations, you crazy son of a bitch. I wish you a lifetime of happiness and hope you never find yourself tied to your bed with your balls glued to your thighs.”
He handed his coat to the attendant we’d hired to store coats in Felicia’s half-empty closet and beelined for the booze.
“What the hell was that about?” I asked Isla, who I now realized was not Sean’s date, but Felicia’s friend.
“We had the misfortune of stepping onto the elevator at the same time.” She rolled her eyes. “We were stuck for exactly eight minutes. Eight minutes of my life I’ll never get back. And what is he talking about? Ball glueing? What the hell?”
“He thinks Felicia is probably a psychopath who will torture and stalk me for the rest of my life if things don’t work out. This is based on nothing other than the fact that she was messaging me as Savannah initially.”
“Ah. He does seem like the suspicious type, though I am too, so I can’t find fault with that or his concerns. But I’m not a drama queen. That was a dramatic statement.”
That made me laugh. “He is a drama queen.” I reached out to take her coat. “Can I get you a drink?” I held up my closed fist. “I need to make an aspirin delivery to a friend with a headache but after that I can grab you whatever you want.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I see Felicia.”
I nodded. “Thanks for coming.”
She shot me a look that made me wonder if she knew Felicia was pregnant. No. Felicia wouldn’t tell all her friends before she told me, would she? It seemed like I should be the first to know.
I delivered the pills to Kathryn, who took them eagerly, and went to find my fiancée. I was bursting with the knowledge of her pregnancy. I needed to pull her into our bedroom and tell her I knew. Which made me wonder why she hadn’t told me? Maybe she wasn’t happy about it. Or maybe it was just the timing with the party. I was pretty certain that test hadn’t been in the wastebasket the day before.
Felicia was standing with a group of her friends. She didn’t look unhappy. She still looked pale but she was smiling and laughing.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but I have some news.”
Felicia started and her cheeks turned pink. “What’s that?”
“We got the townhouse. They accepted our offer.”
“What? They didn’t even counter?”
“No, they just accepted it. It was a fair offer.” I took her hand and lifted it to my mouth. “Merry Christmas, Felicia. We have a new house.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “That beautiful home is ours?”
I nodded. “All ours. We’re going to need to buy some furniture. It’s four thousand square feet.”
“Woo hoo!” Savannah clapped her hands and moved her hands like she was raising the roof. “Congratulations, you guys!”
“Thanks, Savannah.” It was amusing to me now that I had ever put her face to Felicia’s words. Savannah in person was nothing like Felicia.
A guy who looked like he was in his mid-twenties and covered in tattoos, approached with a baby, who was crying hot angry tears. “We’re going to have to go, babe,” he said. “He’s losing it.”
