Page 133 of While You Were Trending

Adelaide’s eyes get shiny, but she doesn’t cry again. “About four months ago.”

He squeezes her hand. “I’m sorry for your loss. For the world’s loss. Not every mother is as amazing as yours sounds.”

“She was the best.”

I force myself to tune back in to Cricket and Mabel’s conversation, and I realize they’ve both fallen silent while they look at me, then at Declan, then back to me.

Caught.

“I was just saying that Cricket had a brilliant idea,” Mabel says. “We’re going to ask for a new logo that has a beaver wrestling a one-nippled dildo underneath wedding bells.”

My eyes bulge out, and I look at Cricket, who cracks a smile nearly immediately.

“You okay?” Cricket asks. “You seem distracted.”

I shoot another look at Declan and Adelaide.

As if I needed to confirm for my friends what has me distracted. “I’m watching for spiders,” I lie.

As if Olivia and Heath didn’t sweep the barn for every spiderweb for me while everyone else got food.

Mabel adjusts her glasses. “Do you have an opinion onFive Minutes of ShameorAccidentally Infamousfor our winery name?”

That I do have an easy opinion on. “Who wants to drink shame wine? And why would we want that word in our faces every day? Accidentally Infamous is my choice.”

“Have you decided if you want a wine?”

I shake my head.

“No, you don’t want a wine, or no, you haven’t decided?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Take your time,” Cricket says. “As you’ve told me yourself…once it’s out there, you can’t get it back.”

I’ve been here over four years.

Cricket’s been here not even four months, and she already has a healthier attitude about how she went viral than I’ll ever have about my moment.

But hers was an accident during a routine part of her job.

Mine was karma for trying to do something terrible.

“Oh, no, Mama didn’t follow Alex McMaren,” Adelaide says. “She said he was too full of himself for how good he was. No offense. I hear you’re friends.”

“None taken,” Declan says with a light smile. “He’s getting as good as he thinks he is though.”

Adelaide doesn’t look at me.

Neither does Declan.

“She didn’t like the first lady he married either,” Adelaide says. “And she liked his latest wife even less.”

My spine snaps straight.

Alex got divorced?

And then remarried?