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Chapter1
Penelope
Present Day
“The party is here, bitches!” Holding up two bottles of champagne, I stand in the doorway of Amelia’s house, eager for the alcohol to take my mind off of several emotions this day brings up as well as the fact that my job is insane at the moment and I’m seriously considering running off to Bora Bora without telling a soul just so I can have a moment of peace and quiet without my phone going off.
“Aunt Penelope, you said a bad word.” Oliver, the cutest six-year-old boy to grace this earth, runs right up to me, craning his neck so he can meet my eyes.
I drop my arms and look down at him. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Ollie. But one day, when you’re an adult, you’ll understand why we say bad words all the time.”
“Why?”
“Because life fucking sucks.” I wink at him and then head toward my best girlfriends in the kitchen. “I brought the champagne, ladies.”
If anything keeps me going in life, it’s these women. Honestly, they’ll never know how much meeting them changed my world after the summer my life fell apart. Charlotte, Amelia, and Noelle are the sisters I never had, the three people that made me want to live when I thought my life was over. Meeting them my freshman year at UCLA was the best thing that ever happened to me.
And now we’re all entering the phase of our lives where my girls are catching feelings for men and starting to build futures with them—or they are just catching sperm, like Noelle.
But that’s a whole other story I can fill you in on later.
Charlotte claps her hands. “Good thinking. We didn’t get to have brunch this morning becausesomeonewas too busy preparing for a Super Bowl party,” she says with a side glance in Amelia’s direction.
Every Sunday, my girls and I go to Frankie’s Diner for a champagne brunch. It’s our ritual, but life sometimes gets in the way of it, which I get. Hence why I brought the champagne here so the tradition can at least live on in that respect.
Ethan, Amelia’s boyfriend and Oliver’s father, releases her as she moves toward the cupboard to fetch champagne glasses. “Hey, this was Ethan’s idea, so if you want to blame anyone, blame him.”
“I’ll take the blame,” he says, kissing Amelia on the cheek. “Besides, that just means I got to enjoy her this morning instead of her running out the door to meet you girls.”
“That’d better mean you got laid, Amelia,” I interject. “Otherwise, that’s just a waste of a Sunday morning without brunch.”
If there’s one thing I’ll always advocate for, it’s sex. But not just any sex,goodsex—the kind that all women deserve. Because lord knows there’s a difference between sex just for fun and the kind that makes you feel like you can let that sexual kitten out of the closet long enough to appreciate the fact that you have a vagina and there are men that know how to make it purr, if you catch my drift.
Seriously, more women should be grateful that we have the capacity for multiple orgasms and demand to find a partner who can make that happen. But if not, at least there are battery-operated toys that can fill that hole, no pun intended.
“Don’t worry. Ethan made sure staying home was worth it.” Amelia smirks in his direction as he grabs a beer and proudly struts to where the rest of the boys are sitting on the couch.
“So how are things going? Are he and Oliver officially moved in yet?” Charlotte asks once Ethan is gone just as Noelle comes into the kitchen from the bathroom.
Amelia met Ethan last summer when he opened his practice in the same complex as Amelia’s office. She’s a marriage and sex therapist, and he’s a divorce lawyer. You can imagine the disdain for each other that developed almost instantly when they met, but all I saw were fireworks. Sure enough, after a delivery of three-hundred dildos to his office to show him not to mess with my friend, he finally admitted that he wanted her.
Like any fresh relationship, there were a few learning curves, but with a little tough love from me, Charlotte, and Noelle, Amelia and Ethan were able to sort out their issues and move forward, culminating with him and his son moving into her house.
“It’s almost official. Next weekend should be the last move with a bunch of little stuff. Oliver’s room is already set up, Ethan donated a bunch of their furniture since most of my stuff was newer and was already here anyway, and they’ve pretty much been sleeping here for the past week, so I’d say everything is basically finished.”
“We’re so happy for you, Amelia.” Noelle gestures to Charlotte and me, and we both nod.
“Thank you. I’m insanely happy.”
“Good. And if he ever messes up again, just let me know. I can deliver three-hundred tubes of hemorrhoid cream to his office with the click of a button.” A second later, my cell phone rings. I stare down at the screen once I pull it from my pocket. “Jesus, why on earth is my boss calling me on a Sunday like this?”
“Does he not usually call on Sundays?” Amelia asks.
“Every once in a while because PR never stops, you know? But this is like the fifth time he’s called.” Sure enough, there are five missed calls from him.
“Should you call him back then?”
“Ugh, I really don’t want to think about work right now. I just wanted to get champagne drunk with my girls and watch hot men run around in tight pants.” I groan. “But I’d better see what he wants before I get too drunk to have a normal conversation with him.”
