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“Tell me.”
“I have shared guardianship of Mira with Chris’s best friend.” When a quick glance at her face told me she was going to listen before reacting, I took a slow sip of chardonnay and then set my glass aside, knowing the wine would only make my headache worse. “You remember Liam Davies?” I asked.
Her eyes gleamed. “How could I forget? He’s delicious. I wonder if he’d go for an older woman.”
I gave her a look, and she chuckled.
“Kidding,” she said.
“He is an unmitigated asshole.”
Rosa laughed. “I don’t think he actually is, though. Do you really believe that?”
I didn’t know what I believed. Which made everything so much more complicated.
“Have I ever told you what he said to me the first time we met?”
She shook her head, taking a seat at the island and picking up the discarded glass of wine for herself.
I tugged at the ponytail holder until my waves were free and I could dig my fingers into my scalp. Thank goodness no more noodles came out. A girl could take only so much in one day.
I sat like that for a moment, hands speared into my hair, staring down at the counter, mind churning back to the first time I’d laid eyes on Liam.
“It was probably ten years ago,” I told her. “I was in the middle of planning my wedding to Charles, and I was so stressed. All week, I’d been buried in spreadsheets and budgets and invite lists. All I wantedto do was relax and read and not think.” My eyes closed unwittingly. “I didn’t even hear him come in at first, but when I looked up from my book, he was there. Just ...staringat me.”
She listened quietly, sipping on the wine while I got lost in the memory.
“I mean, objectively, he’s just ... stupidly hot, right?”
Rosa hummed.
“He wasn’t a dick right off the bat, but he did stare at my ring for a few seconds before he introduced himself. When he shook my hand, we kinda just ... stood like that for longer than was polite.” My brow wrinkled. “Then Charles came into the kitchen, and Liam let go of my hand.”
“I can only imagine how well those two got along.”
I laughed. Then laughed even harder.
I didn’t stop until my eyes actually welled up with tears, because that entire evening had been such an unbelievable disaster. Charles showed his pretentious asshole side for the first time in our entire relationship, and Liam ...
When my laughter ebbed, I swiped a thumb under my eyes and exhaled slowly. “By the time dinner was done, Liam had called Charles a bottom-feeding dick whose head was shoved so far up his own ass that it was a miracle he could see where he was walking.”
Rosa choked on her sip of wine.
“And then”—I paused, sucking in a sharp breath as I remembered the words as clearly as if he’d said them yesterday—“he wished me luck with husband number two and said he hoped I had better decision-making skills after I was done with husband number one.”
“No,” she breathed.
Somewhere in the middle of the story, I’d started picking at the edge of my thumbnail. “Yup.”
Even a decade later, I felt the sting of that comment just as clearly as the moment he’d said it.
“Charles really did have his head up his ass,” Rosa said.
I gave her a look. “Not the point.”
“And you did get divorced from him.” She set her hand on mine. “Which was an excellent life choice, as you know.”
“Whose side are you on?”
