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“Have you heard from Mom?” I ask. “Been trying to track her down allweek.”
“No, but I’m sure she’s fine. Probably drinking too many martinis and delighting over the fact that you’ve got your panties in a knot over herwhereabouts.”
Irritation chafes at me. “She put you through law school. Don’t be adick.”
“She manipulated both of us for years. You’re still playingalong.”
When Daisy strides in, my retort is forgotten. She’s wearing cherry-red shorts and a crisp white T-shirt. Her dark hair, cut blunt at the ends, swings in a curtain around her shoulders. Her sandals make her taller and display curvy legs that come from walking everywhere in thiscity.
“Afternoon in the Hamptons?” I murmur as she shifts into the seat next to me, struggling because of the closequarters.
“You weren’t invited,” she tosses back, her dark eyes locking onmine.
We always made fun of the rich New Yorkers, but now we work with them everyday.
“Everything okay?” Iask.
“Yeah. Lily came home this morning panicked because she got a B on an essay. I sat her down and reminded her the sum of her life experience won’t be determined by an economicspaper.”
“Way to go handing out life lessons beforecoffee.”
She threads her fingers through my hair. “Speaking of… you need a haircut. I felt like an asshole pointing it out when you’d just spent an extra thousand dollars and hours at LAX to get back to seeme.”
“Justified.” A grin pulls at my lips, and hers curve tomatch.
Daisy’s been my friend since undergrad. Our friends were friends. She was down to earth and self-possessed as hell. The night we met, I mentioned that girls always seemed to be tripping around me, and she informed me any collisions were due to the fact that my hair was too long for me to seestraight.
I liked herimmediately.
I thought the feeling was mutual, but after her twin sister, Vi, dropped out of school, Daisy all but ghosted me. It wasn’t until almost a year later, after a spring break trip, that we started hanging outagain.
Hunter clears his throat. “Kendall couldn’t be here because Rory’s sailing boats at the park," he says, referring to his girlfriend and her son. "But I wanted you to know I’m planning topropose.”
The girls gasp, and the guysgroan.
"Incredible,” Rena murmurs as if Hunter just showed her a video of a dog riding amotorcycle.
"Never thought I'd settle down?" heasks.
"Never thought I'd see you plan something," Daisy teases, and he shoots her a witheringlook.
We might all be friends, but we’re very differentpeople.
I’m a big-picture guy, but Daisy spots what’s running under the surface. Sometimes she misses things she needs to think about, and I have to step in—like how she was so fastidious going over the lease agreements for her company’s first home that she forgot to question whether they needed one in the firstplace.
I’m glad she has some weaknesses. It means she’s human and that I can helpher.
Which I likedoing.
“She’s been proposed to before, you know," Renacomments.
Hunter’s ruddy face goes pale. “Come on. Give me somecredit.”
“I’m offended I haven’t seen you in my office yet,” Jake, who runs a gem company, weighs in. “How manycarats?”
“Wait. You guys have been dating less than a year,” Renasays.
“When you know, you know. Plus Rory’s the cutest kidever.”
