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“Yeah. She’s coming with her new band. They’re not bad.”

Madison moved to the big city after her divorce to pursue the music career she’s always dreamed of.

She’s been in three different bands since leaving. It’s not exactly glamorous. But she says there’s enough demand in the city for live performances that she only needs to hold a part-time job teaching music to pay the bills.

She says she’s happy.

“They’re not good enough for her,” Luke grumbles.

No one but me hears him, and the conversation changes.

As the night wears on, Bryce somehow convinces Avery, Scarlett, and Kayla to dance and sing with him behind the bar, while Luke and Garrett, who’s starting to slur his words, sit with their heads lowered as they argue about baseball.

I find myself sitting next to Blake, who’s back on his favorite stool. I watch my friends, the beer making my brain fuzzy, and wonder about them. Are they happy? Are they missing something in their lives?

Most of them are single.

Luke is the only one who’s divorced, like I will soon be. He and Madison married at twenty-four and got divorced two years later. It’s been almost twenty years but I’ve never seen him with another woman.

I wonder about that. Doesn’t he miss having sex?

What if that happens to me?

“What are you thinking?” Blake asks.

I laugh. “When do you think was the last time Luke got laid?”

“The last time your sister was in town.”

I swivel around to face him. “What?!”

He raises a shoulder and smirks at me like he finds my reaction funny.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah!”

“How did I not know this?”

Blake shrugs. “I caught them doing it in my apartment. Bryce gave them the key. And now I have the image of Luke’s ass forever burned into my brain.”

“Ew… I’m glad I didn’t see that. When was it?”

“During the Dogwood Grove parade.”

The last time Madison was here, just like he said.

“You think it’s been going on for long?”

“I didn’t ask. I closed the door and got out of there fast. Luke never spoke to me about it.”

I’m disappointed that Madison didn’t want to talk to me about it.

But I’m relieved to hear that Luke doesn’t live like a monk just because he’s divorced. But he fulfills his need by having sex with his ex rather than finding someone new. And that’s not going to happen with me. I’m never having sex with Ethan again. There is no part of me that wants to ever touch him again.

I just hope it doesn’t mean that I’m never having sex again…

“What?” Blake bumps my shoulder with his own.