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Alex caught Roxie’s eye and gave her a quick wink. “So, Nina, are you seeing anyone these days?”
God, Roxie loved Alex for shifting the conversation. While she was more than comfortable talking to Alex about her personal life, she wasn’t quite there yet with the other girls.
Nina shook her head and took a big gulp of wine. “No, I’m on hiatus from men.”
Shelia gasped. “Why the hell would you do something crazy like that?”
“Well, Man-Eater,” Nina said, “I’ve had bad luck in that department, and I’ve had my fill. Therefore, I’m taking a break.”
“Yeah, well, sounds like your last man wasn’tfillingyou correctly,” Sheila scoffed.
“That, too.” Nina’s eyes gleamed. “You know, when I moved here last year from Hawaii, I said it was because I needed a change of pace.” She shrugged and swirled the wine in her glass. “Well, I may have left out the teeny, tiny part having to do with breaking my engagement and leaving my fiancé. At the altar.”
Roxie’s eyes widened. “Holy hell! A raunchy mouthandthe ability to keep a massive secret? Most impressive. Hang on.” She scrambled to her feet and dashed toward the kitchen. “We’re going to need more wine for this nugget!”
Less than a minute later, Roxie resumed her seat with an uncorked bottle in hand. She topped off everyone’s glasses and settled on the couch. “Spill it, sailor.”
“There’s not much to tell, really. My family is super old-school, snobby Filipino. My dad’s a doctor and my mom’s ‘Dr. Castillo’s Wife.’ That’s a big deal to them and their friends. They were seriously bummed when I graduated from college without my MRS degree, but I got engaged a couple years after graduation, so they were hopeful. Especially since my fiancé was about to attend an Ivy League medical school. He got bonus points for being Filipino, too. Oh, and the coup de grace was that he was also the son of a doctor.”
Roxie shook her head. “I don’t understand why that’s such a big deal.”
“Status,” Nina answered with an eye roll. “Having two ‘Dr. and Mrs.’ on the wedding invitation just shouts, ‘We’re better than you.’ My parents are big fans of that.”
“Now that,” Roxie said, lifting her glass, “I get. My folks are all about being better than everyone around them.”
Nina clinked glasses with her. “I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t milk it for all it was worth because I sure as hell didn’t complain when I got a top-of-the-line Mercedes for my sixteenth birthday. I also may not have complained when they threw me a fancy-schmancy debutante ball on my eighteenth birthday at, of course, one of the fanciest hotels in Honolulu. But the idea of being like my mom for the rest of my life was too much. And Jared was—is—a nice guy and all, but he’s just... blah. Our conversations were blah, the sex was blah—”
Sheila’s face scrunched up. “God knows that if it was already blah to start, it was just going to get a whole hell of a lot worse once you got married.”
“I know, right? And frankly, being all demure and proper just sucked. I hated it.”
Roxie choked on her wine. Again. Sputtering, she said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.You?Demure and proper?”
Nina nodded, lifting her hand in a Girl Scout salute. “I shit you not.”
She opened her mouth, but it took a couple of tries for the words to come out. “How can that even be?Demuredoesn’t even come into play when I think of you. You’re one of the ballsiest women I know.”
“And Roxie’s pretty damn ballsy herself,” Sheila added.
Roxie smiled. “Thank you. I think.”
The woman snorted in reply.
“I mean, seriously, Nina, you say the stuff—out loud—that people actually think but are too scared to say.”
“Trust me, I wasn’t always like this. Deep down, maybe, but I never let myself be bold because it wasn’t ‘proper.’ But I’m twenty-eight, for god’s sake. Fuck proper, right? And yes, my timing sucked since I figured all this out the morning of my wedding”—Nina shrugged—“but I couldn’t go through with it.”
“What did your folks say?” she asked.
Something that looked like a mix of regret and sadness flickered across the woman’s face, and Roxie’s heart clutched for her friend. She knew all about having a strained relationship with your parents.
“They weren’t happy. At all. They said I was an embarrassment to the family, and that I owed them for wasting their hard-earned money. You know, all that good stuff.” Her shoulders drooped. “So, I left. I have a friend in Seattle, and I stayed with her for a couple weeks. We came to Hudson to do the tourist thing, and I saw your help wanted sign in the window, and... here we are, ladies.”
Roxie threw her arm around Nina’s shoulders and squeezed. “Awww, sweetie. You made the right choice, and I, for one, am thrilled to have you here with us.”
“Roxie’s right.” Alex nodded. “You made the right choice for you. Yeah, it sucks that people got hurt and embarrassed in the process, but you can’t live your life for everyone else. Better to happen now than ten years down the line when there may be kids involved and more at stake, you know?”
“Thanks, you guys,” Nina said, affection clear in her voice. She poured more wine into her glass and raised it high in the air. “I’d like to propose a toast to Alex and Roxie.”
