Marley knew better than to argue, so she hopped off the sofa to change. Reena was Marley’s cousin on her dad’s side while Ruby was her cousin on her mom’s side. The two were also Marley’s closest friends, other than Shayne. These three might be her favorite people in the world, but she would have preferred the alone time tonight.
But a knock on the door stopped Marley while she was still on the stairs. Shayne let them in. Ruby was carrying a bunch of colorful tote bags, and Reena was carrying a large cake box, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for her—Reena owned a bakery.
They dropped their things on the dining table.
“I’m confused. Did we have dinner plans?” Marley asked, watching Ruby unload Thai takeout and wrapped gifts from her bags.
“It’s a surprise party!” Shayne said, clapping. “Your ta-ta-to-your-tatas party!”
Ugh.She should have known. Only a handful of people knew Marley was having a mastectomy. And other than her parents, all of them were now in this room. She gave Ruby a concerned glance, but Ruby was still unloading the Thai food, looking unbothered by this party’s theme.
“Look what I made!” Reena said, opening the cake box with a flourish.
It was a boob cake—an iced cake in the shape of round, brown breasts with a purple piped buttercream bra. And because Reena was an excellent cake decorator, it was beautiful.
Thanks for the Mammarieswas written in cursive across the cake’s cleavage.
Marley’s eyebrows rose. “My surgery isn’t for two weeks… Why are we celebratingnow?” Actually, why were theycelebratingat all? She was literally having body parts removed—not really something to celebrate. But clearly, the three had gone to a lot of work for this get-together, so she didn’t want to complain.
“We’re celebrating all month!” Shayne said. “I mean, I took you to that Scandi spa for your bikini photo shoot last week.”
True. Shayne had surprised her with a trip to a Nordic spa where he’d insisted on taking about a million pictures of her in a swimsuit so she would have a record of her body pre-mastectomy. She wasn’t sure she’d ever look at those pictures, though. Why would she, when she could never have that body back?
None of this was how Marley would prefer to cope with her upcoming surgery. And she was pretty sure Shayne knew that. He knew she was averyprivate person. It almost felt like Shayne was “performative best-friending” and making a big show out of supporting her even though he knew this wasn’t the way Marley wouldwantsupport. But that was ridiculous. Planning this party was thoughtful. She should enjoy it.
Shayne again insisted Marley change her clothes, and soon they were crowded around their tiny dining table eating Thai red curry noodles, fish cakes, and mango salad while sipping bright-orange Thai iced tea. It was all delicious. Thai was Marley’s comfort food.
“Hey, question for you,” Reena said as Marley slurped some noodles. “My friend Andrea wants you to take her shopping. Any chance you’ll have any time before surgery?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Marley said. On top of owning a bakery, Reena had a pretty popular YouTube cooking channel and lots of content-creator friends. Marley had gone shopping with a few of them to help them find looks for their videos. “I’ll send you my work schedule.”
“Marley, you should bechargingthese influencers to style them,” Shayne said.
Marley shook her head. “Nope. No interest in that—I couldnotmanage working for myself.” All the freelance stylists Marley knew did a ton of content creation of their ownand hustled to get clients. Marley preferred to be behind the scenes.
“Reid’s will suck your soul right out of your body. I can’t believe youwantto stay there.” Shayne would know. He’d only lasted a year as a menswear associate at Reid’s.
“It won’t be as bad if I move to personal shopping,” Marley said. “I could be more selective of my customers.” That, and she could have a private office. And not have the likes of Tova Kaplan trying to steal her commissions.
“How’s that going?” Shayne asked. “Any word of them opening up a position yet?”
Ruby raised a brow. “Ooh, is that why Erin wanted to see you yesterday?”
Marley reached across the table to get the container of mango salad. “She needed my help with a client. Can’t really talk about it.” She piled more salad on her plate.
Reena beamed. “Is Erin the personal shopper? That’s awesome!”
Marley nodded. It was awesome. But it could also be a disaster… if she screwed it up. Or if Nikhil really was the man-baby that his handler thought he was.
Marley was still not sure why she agreed to work with him. He just looked so… small, despite his new superhero muscles. He said no one reallysawhim. And that reminded Marley of when she was eighteen and her favorite aunt, Maryam Aunty, was going through cancer treatment.
Marley hadn’t told anyone at school that the woman who was more like a mother to her than her actual mother was sick. But somehow Nikhil, the never-serious, wisecracking guy who sat next to her in chemistry every day, saw that she wasn’t happy. She eventually told him everything, and he turned outto be a great listener. Nikhil had been there for her like no one else. He let her vent, or cry, or whatever every day. When he convinced her to go to prom with him instead of staying home like she wanted to, she agreed.
And of course, it all ended in disaster. Nikhil told everyone what they had done at the prom after-party, and Marley realized he’d only been nice to get her in bed. Marley left school soon after prom because her aunt got even sicker. And she never saw or spoke to Nikhil again.
But even if his motivation back then was only to get into her prom dress, hehadhelped her. He made her laugh every day at the worst point in her life. She wasn’t sure how she would have gotten through it without him. She said yes to styling him now so she could repay him.
But this time she would keep her boundaries up. She had no intention of growing attached to Nikhil in any way, even as a friend. She simply didn’t have the bandwidth for that right now.
