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No time my ass, I thought only somewhat ruefully as I finally got into brunch a whopping thirty minutes late. Thankfully, the hostess had been kind and let Emily and Georgia get seated first, which meant they were already halfway through their first round of mimosas when I sat down.
“Aww! You don’t look sad at all!” Emily said happily, making me laugh, because tucked behind her ear was one of the flowers from the vase on the table—though that was no doubt Georgia’s doing, because even when she was tipsy, my sister was still ever the practical one.
It was actually amusing to see her in her typical blue Oxford and jeans while sitting next to my free spirit of a best friend, who was the polar opposite as usual, decked out in a yellow gingham print dress, a big, floppy hat and heart-shaped sunglasses. I blamed how cute they looked—specifically with their big smiles and playful hair flowers—for the fact that I decided to just come clean to Emily about Adam.
My heart was pitter-pattering already, but I figured it was best to put Emily out of any worried misery she might have about me and my breakup with Caspar, so within the first few sips of my mimosa, I went for it.
“So, I have something to confess to you about Adam.”
Emily’s eyes went wide, but she was still laughing. “Oh God,” she said in her I’m horrified voice. “You still want to sleep with him?”
Oof.
“I slept with him,” I said, ripping off the bandage before I could change my mind. But I regretted it as soon as I watched the mirth flicker from Emily’s eyes, leaving them cold and hard as she stared at me for a second.
“I’m sorry, what?” she said.
“She slept with Adam,” Georgia confirmed. “In his office. Like a porno.”
I looked at her. “Georgia.”
“What? That’s the best part.”
“I agree, but I don’t think that’s where Em’s head is at right now,” I said slowly, and a bit humorously in hopes of tricking Emily to be lighthearted about this. But I should’ve known that wouldn’t work.
“You have got to be kidding me, Adrienne,” she said, her voice so stone-cold and sober it was as if she’d never had a drink in her life, let alone one a second ago. “How could you do this?”
I heaved a giant sigh, saying things I knew would be useless, things about the tension, the inability to work. How we were actually doing better now than we were before we had sex. I even played the Caspar breakup card in hopes of earning some sympathy, but I got absolutely none. The cross-armed death look that Emily pinned on me was so potently icy that the waitress kept nervously peering at us and skipping our table, even as Georgia tried to flag her down for another round of drinks.
“Look, I know you’re pissed, but all I want you to know is that I’m actually fine,” I said in the end. “I’m not depressed and you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Oh, I think I do,” Emily said in singsong, raising her eyebrows as she turned her attention briefly to her drink. Across the table, Georgia shot me a crap look because we both knew the singsong meant Emily was about to throw down.
And that was precisely what she did after a sip of her mimosa.
“I’m sure you know this, AJ, but you are playing with fire here. Adam might be a good boss, but you have no idea what he’s like in a relationship, because he has no idea what he’s like in a relationship. He’s never been in one. He can’t commit to a single human being beyond a work level. He can’t even keep in touch with his own sister without you reminding him.”
“Hey—easy,” I frowned hard, feeling defensive. The only people I’d ever talked to about Adam and Holland were Georgia and Emily, and it had always been with the understanding that there was no judgement.
Emily took in a deep breath.
“I’m just saying, AJ. I like Adam. A lot. I know he’s a good person. But this is uncharted territory for him, and we have no idea how he’s going to act. I mean how many times have you slept with hi
m?”
“Once.” I paused. “Plus some stuff last night.”
“At his house?”
“Mine. And then I kicked him out.”
“So you gave him that one orgasm last night and you haven’t talked to him at all today?”
I squinted at her. “No…”
“And you guys haven’t carefully mapped out the exact logistics of your new friends-with-benefits situation?”
“No, because we aren’t serial killers—what are you even getting at right now, Em?” I asked.
