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“Jimmy stopped by to grab a coffee. He told us you might be a little late to meet us.”
“Well, wasn’t that sweet of him,” I said sarcastically. “And yet here I am, on time and everything.”
“You had to know he wouldn’t keep it secret. We’ve all been there,” Kate said, which I was sure was a lie. Kate had never been there because she was better than that. More responsible. She nodded at the carafe. “Have some coffee.”
“Where did you sleep last night?” Suzie asked. “You didn’t have to sleep on your porch swing, did you?”
“No, I…” I didn’t really want Suzie to know her adored big brother thought I was an idiot—rightfully so—but I couldn’t find a way out of telling her. “I slept at Michael’s.”
Suzie gave me a blank look. “Michael who? We don’t know a Michael.”
I rolled my eyes. “Michael, your brother. That Michael.”
Suzie put down her coffee and stared at me with wide eyes. “How the hell did that happen?”
“I didn’t sleep with him, Suze. I just slept in his apartment.”
“Sleep with him all you want.” Suzie waved a dismissive hand. “Michael let his best friend marry his little sister, so I don’t really have a leg to stand on there. I just can’t believe you saw him before I did!”
“I’m…sorry?”
“Three years, Nora. It’s been threeyears.”
She pouted about that while Angelo took our order, but perked up long enough to ask for the sampler platter. “I can’t eat very much, thanks to this little peach taking up all the space,” she said, patting her belly affectionately, “but I like the variety.”
“I think the real question,” Kate said after Angelo left, “is how you got to Michael’s to begin with, because we left you drunk on your front porch.”
“Yes. Well.” I fidgeted with my napkin. “I decided to get the ladder from Jimmy so I could climb in my bedroom window—”
“While drunk,” Kate clarified.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Alcohol will do that to you.
Kate and Suzie looked at each other and giggled.
I sighed and got on with it. I told them how Michael recognized me while I was giving Eli a lecture on proper horse usage, and how I had claimed his bed after he had unambiguously offered the couch. By the time I was done Suzie was practically in tears from laughing so hard.
“I’m glad my humiliation amuses you,” I said drily.
“Aw, honey.” Suzie wiped her eyes. “You weren’t so bad, as far as drunk girls go. You didn’t puke on him, at least.”
Our food arrived and we all whipped out our phones to take pictures. We hashtagged appropriately with #dreamers and #foodgasm, doing our part to defend Hart’s Ridge as America’s Cutest Town. Tourism—specifically, city-dwellers’ fascination with postcard-worthy small towns—was Hart’s Ridge biggest industry now, after the chicken processing plant had shut down. Well, tourism and Christmas trees.
“You don’t really need me to come to dinner tomorrow, do you?” I asked between bites of waffle.
Suzie pointed her fork at me. “Don’t even think about it, Nora. You’re coming.”
I grimaced. It wasn’t like I had done anything truly terrible. As Suzie had pointed out, it could have been a lot worse. I’d just drunkenly wandered down Main Street because I had locked myself out of my house. Not a good look for a thirty-something, in my opinion, but it had ended without expulsion of bodily fluids, so there was that, at least.
Kate gave me a sympathetic look but did nothing to save me.
“But seriously,” Suzie continued. “If you want to hook up with Michael, I’m all for it. You haven’t had fun in ages. Plus, he meets your criteria.”
I paused, the coffee halfway to my mouth. “Hot?”
“Temporary,” they said in unison. And laughed.
They weren’t wrong. In the year since my divorce, I had definitely made a habit of choosing men who were only in Hart’s Ridge for a vacation. Men who were up for a good time and were more than willing to keep things light and happy. “Trust me, it’s better for everyone this way.”
