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This was already hilarious.
It got better when Bernice started serving, and she asked some little old lady what she wanted, and the lady pointed in the air to indicate the announcement and ordered, “What she said.”
Since that flight, and Bernice relating this story, any night where we got together and had cocktails and munchies, we called Cock and Snacktails night.
But outside of the night we had them two days after Remy left me, the night after Remy served me with papers, the night after Bernice’s husband confessed to cheating on her (not whole hog, he’d just kissed another woman, but, trust me, that was almost a worse betrayal than taking it to the limit), I felt right now I needed Cock and Snacktails more than ever.
“I let him come over and we bicker about stupid shit, Kara,” I admitted softly, even though she knew this. “Manon going over her monthly budget and how much of that goes to Starbucks, and how my then twenty-year-old son really wasn’t old enough to do a cross country drive with his buds, though he was. It’s like we make up shit to bicker about.”
All Kara said was, “Cock and Snacktails,” which set my gut to twisting.
Because I knew she didn’t want to get into it then, since there was a lot to get into because she agreed with me.
“I’m holding on to him,” I said in horror. “He’s moved on. Has the bachelor pad he’s always wanted. The petite, beautiful, free-spirited, younger woman. And I’m holding on to him, giving Manon extra money, defending her right to copiously caffeinate, forbidding Sabre to have something he really wants, and my son is mature, smart, it is something he should have without me making it a headache and a huge discussion with his dad.”
“Cock,” Kara said slowly, “and Snacktails, sister.”
I looked down to my dash again and saw the time.
I was supposed to be at Remy’s house in five minutes and I was, in the current traffic, a good fifteen, twenty minutes away.
Even noting this, I could not get past the epiphany that was assaulting my head.
“I told him when he walked out on me, he couldn’t come back, and he was good with that,” I shared. “But even if those words came out, I never let him go.”
“Wyn, honey, go see what’s up with Sabre. And then it’s kickoff night, yeah?”
Of course, she remembered.
Bea didn’t.
Kara did.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Be with your staff, open that champagne, toast the latest box of fabulousness your twenty thousand subscribers are going to love that you curated for them as the preeminent stylist of Hollywood, Bollywood, and everything in between. In the meantime, I’ll get with Bernice, and we’ll set a time to have girl time. Is there any night you can’t do it? Or should I call Noel?”
Noel was my assistant.
Noel had decided he wanted to live the life of Devil Wears Prada without (I hoped) the devil part. Therefore, Noel had a self-imposed duty of being on twenty-four, seven.
And I could be dramatic. But I once picked up my own dry cleaning on a Saturday because I was in the same strip mall, and he’d lost his mind in a way we did not want a repeat.
Truth?
It was no skin off my nose my PA felt picking up my dry cleaning was his sacred duty.
So I let him.
In other words, I answered the only way I could, considering the last time I put something in my own schedule was two weeks into Noel’s employment (and we didn’t want a repeat of that either).
“You better call Noel.”
Kara started laughing.
I felt my lips tip up, because I adored her, and Noel and his foibles meant he made it his mission to take care of me.
But I had, at most, twenty minutes to come to terms with something earth-shattering.
I had, at most, twenty minutes to finally let go of the love of my life.
“I gotta go, I’m going to be late to the meeting,” I said to Kara.
She read my tone, which wasn’t exactly beaten, but it wasn’t far from it.
“I’ll tell Noel it’s emergency planning, okay?” she asked.
“Okay. Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime and every time. Love you, babe.”
“Love you back, babe.”
We hung up and the instant I saw her call fade from the screen on my dash, I saw something else.
And heard something.
“Hang on a second, baby.”
I turned and looked at the big, amazing-looking guy sitting on the barstool. The guy who had been smiling at me as I walked to and by him.
“You did not just walk by me.”
I had.
Even as he’d smiled at me, I’d walked right by Remy, never thinking once that gorgeous man was smiling at me that way because he wanted me to stop.
But he didn’t let me walk away from him without giving him my number.
He was so confident, so sure of himself, I’d never met a man like him.
