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Me: Your client has people? Look at you go!
Dax: Yeah. Maybe after we wallow for a bit tonight we can celebrate
Me: You get enough wine into me, I’m up for almost anything
I watch as three dots appear in our conversation bubble, disappear, then reappear and disappear again. When he does finally message back, all I get is a party hat.
My sister leans in, resting her chin on the little dip of my shoulder.
“If you’re texting Stuart, so help me god, I’m taking back the pity fritters.”
I hold up my phone as evidence. “Not Stuart. Just Dax. We’re hanging out after work.”
At the mention of Dax’s name, Kiersten’s eyebrows hitch up agood inch. “I thought you told me Daxon had a date tonight. With the vet?”
“She’s a veterinarian’s assistant,” I counter. “And Stuart picked his stuff up today. Dax offered to cancel and hang out because he thought I might be upset.”
Kiersten responds with anmmmm-hmmm,and I prepare for some sort of follow-up comment. Instead, she turns away, and we walk in silence in the direction of my condo. By the third block, I assume the subject has been dropped. Then she stops and fishes out a second doughnut from her box, but before she takes a bite, she pauses. “It was the third date if I recall. That’s the sex date. He canceled his sex date for you.”
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
Kierst bites into her doughnut, watching me.
“Stop giving me that look.”
She holds up her hands. “This is how I look at everyone. If you are interpreting anything other than sisterly concern, that’s on you.”
My phone vibrates. It’s Dax again. I ignore Kierst and text him back, letting him know he can come over whenever he finishes. The entire time, I can feel her eyes on me.
“You know what I think you should do tonight?” she asks.
My text whooshes out into cyberspace. “I have a very good ideawhoyou think I should do.”
Kiersten shrugs innocently. “He canceled his date for you. Plus, he’s a total babe. I’d be all over that if I wasn’t married.”
“Kiersten.”
“Seriously, the man wears jeans that leave nothing about that ass to the imagination.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means instead of waking up tomorrow morning to yourthree alarm clocks, you could be waking up with whisker-burned thighs.”
I don’t know how to respond. So I stand, mouth still open in shock, as she licks a smudge of abandoned pink frosting from the corner of her lip and starts walking. Her extra three inches in height require me to run-walk to catch up.
“He’s my best friend,” I tell her, waving my hand in front of my currently non-whisker-burned region. “Doingthatis not a friend activity.”
She eyes my crotch. “Why not? I’d bet the rest of this doughnut that Daxon McGuire is a generous lover.”
My mouth drops open a second time. “Now you’re making things up.”
Kiersten pops what remains of the gambled doughnut into her mouth. “What did he bring you last month when you were in bed with strep throat?”
I know exactly where she is trying to go. He brought me soup. Homemade. It was delicious. “He got a Crock-Pot for Christmas, and he hadn’t used it yet.”
She lifts her chin, a huge smile spreading across her face because she thinks she’s won our argument. “Make all the excuses you want, Gemma. He wants you. And I think, once your heart has had a little bit more time to realize that Stuart was the fucking worst and you dodged a massive bullet, you’ll realize that friends can easily become lovers.”
Before I can tell her all of the flaws in her shoddy argument, my phone rings. Kiersten’s eyebrows waggle as if she’s anticipating more evidence of her wild theory. I get a small sense of satisfaction in holding up my phone and showing her our elderly aunt’s name flashing across the screen.
