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‘Sure, I’m sure.’ She bade goodbye to the others and left, escaping before their gestures of support and concern could make her do something dopey, like bursting into tears.
It wasn’t until she was in the cab home, bouncing across the cobblestoned street past Brooklyn Park, and she’d got the foolish urge to cry under lockdown, that she began to wonder where exactly the hot ball of resentment had come from that had caused her to end an immensely enjoyable morning of BFF bonding on such a sour note. And once she’d digested the only possible answer to that question, she then had to ask herself why she should resent what Reese and Cassie and Amber had—when she’d decided years ago that she would never want the same thing for herself.
* * *
Once back at the minute loft apartment she was struggling to pay the rent on in Brooklyn’s funky Red Hook district, Gina stripped off her clothes, took another hot shower and crashed straight into the fanciful iron-framed double bed she’d crammed into the loft’s bedroom. Given that she was now at the grand old age of twenty-nine and somewhat out of practice, clearly her all-nighter with Carter had taken a physical toll that had had emotional repercussions. But once she’d caught up on her sleep, she’d be herself again—and everything would snap back into sharp, vivid focus.
Several hours later, after a fitful nap that had been filled with far too many erotic dreams featuring the Mystery Studmuffin who should not be named, the door buzzer sounded. She crawled out of bed, her pulse pounding into her throat and a few other more intimate parts of her anatomy—until she spied Cassie’s face through the peephole. The dip in her stomach had nothing whatsoever to do with disappointment, she decided as she yanked open the heavy security door.
‘Gina, you look wasted,’ Cassie announced as she stepped into the flat with a garment bag hooked over her shoulder. ‘Maybe you’re coming down with flu.’
If only.
‘No, I have the constitution of an ox. I’m just exhausted.’
Cassie sent her a bland look, but fortunately didn’t probe. ‘Amber asked me to drop this off for you.’ She handed her the garment bag, which had the white logo of Amber’s Bridal emblazoned across it. ‘She told me to tell you she’s done the necessary adjustments, but she needs you to try it on and send it back, just to make sure the fit’s good before she starts adding the other bits.’
‘Thanks for bringing it over.’ Gina laid the bag over the back of her sofa. ‘I’m sorry you had to come all this way. I should have stuck around, shouldn’t I?’
Cassie simply said, ‘Are you asking me a question? Because I know absolutely nothing about the etiquette of bridal fittings.’
Gina smiled at the clueless comment. ‘How about a coffee for your trouble?’
‘Only if you’re sure you don’t want to get back to your nap?’
‘Positive,’ Gina replied, keen to avoid returning to her nap, which was causing more problems than it solved.
To her great relief Cassie agreed to stay and Gina set about making the coffee.
‘Is everything okay? You seem a little shaky.’ The cautious comment had Gina’s hand halting as it ladled coffee into the French press. Cassie wasn’t the most intuitive person in the world, so it had to be really obvious.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, determined to make it so as she started ladling again. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘You totally overreacted to Reese’s teasing,’ Cassie replied with her customary bluntness. ‘Which made me wonder if something bad happened last night.’
Gina smoothed her palms down her robe, touched by Cassie’s concern. She filled the French press with boiling water and faced her friend. ‘And there I was thinking I had my poker face on.’
‘I would strongly suggest you don’t enter any poker tournaments, then—you wouldn’t make much money.’
Gina sent Cassie a weak smile. ‘Don’t worry, Cass, nothing bad happened. It was all good.’ Way too good, really.
‘Was it Marnie’s brother?’ Cassie asked, her expression direct and totally non-judgmental. ‘The guy you were with last night?
’
The blush fired up Gina’s neck as she opened her mouth to deny it—but her mind went completely blank, and the manufactured outrage, the clever evasions, the bald-faced lie she wanted to tell got trapped in her throat somewhere in the region of her Adam’s apple. Until all she could manage to choke out on a panicked whisper was: ‘How did you know?’
‘It was obvious once I’d analysed the available data.’ Cassie stirred sugar into her coffee, apparently unfazed by the admission of guilt.
‘Which was?’
Cassie shrugged and sipped. ‘Marnie took a call from him just before you arrived, and arranged to meet him at The Standard Hotel for lunch on Tuesday, so I knew he was in town.’ Cassie placed her mug on the counter with calm deliberation. ‘And the only other time I’ve seen you blush like that is the morning after you slept with him the first time. Well, until right this minute, that is.’
‘Terrific.’ Gina’s teeth ground together as the heat scalded her ears. ‘Did you share your brilliant powers of deduction with anyone else?’
‘No.’ A tiny frown bisected Cassie’s brow as Gina’s breath gushed out and the knots in her shoulders loosened a little. ‘But why would that be bad?’ Cassie asked, giving a slow owlish blink—which Gina knew meant she was trying to process something particularly complex.
‘Because I don’t want Reese and Marnie to know.’ She ruthlessly resisted the urge to say ‘Duh’. It wasn’t Cassie’s fault she’d figured out the truth, or that she was so clueless about the dynamics of female friendships.
