“I am not dying,” Ridley said as she walked up to them carrying a glass of champagne. She shrugged. “The two of you always have your dogs. This way I don’t have to worry about fur all over my house.”
“Are you sure you aren’t dying?” Ashanti asked. She reached over as if to feel her forehead, but Ridley knocked her hand away.
“Stop,” she said. She gestured to Evie with her glass. “Lock Pancake up so we can get to eating and chatting, please?”
“His name is Waffles,” Evie reminded her.
“Whatever.”
Evie secured Waffles in the Ritz-Carlton of crates, then joined the others in the living room. She lifted a square of the fig, prosciutto, and arugula pizza from the array of food spread across Ridley’s glass sofa table. There was also a bowl of mixed nuts, a platter of fruit, and the cupcakes she’d brought over.
“Start talking,” Ridley said.
“Can we at least sing ‘Happy Birthday’ before I’m forced to divulge all my secrets?” Evie asked.
Ridley pitched a cashew at her. “Your ass shouldn’t be keeping secrets,” she said.
Ashanti cleared her throat. “You sure you want to go there?”
Ridley shot her a nasty look. “We’re talking about Evie now.”
“Can we talk about you after we’re done with me?” Evie asked.
“Come on with it, Ev. I’m not getting any younger here.”
“Fine.” Evie blew out a sigh.
“I’ll give you a head start,” Ashanti said. “She and Bryson are sleeping together.”
“About damn time!” Ridley said. “By the way, I kinda hate you right now, because that man is fine and I just know you are getting the kind of sex I need in my life. Tell me everything. Is he curved? Does he growl or is he a screamer?”
“Ridley!” Evie nearly choked on a chunk of fig. She laughed to the point that tears streamed down her face. “How are you so classy and so crass at the same time?”
“It’s an art form.” Ridley sipped her champagne and wiggled her fingers at her. “Now back to the basketball player.”
While noshing on bougie pizza and expensive champagne,Evie gave a highlight reel accounting of everything that had happened in the past week.
“You’ve been in his bed every night?” Ashanti asked.
“That man has you dick-whipped, Ev.”
“It’s not like that,” Evie said.
Although, maybe it was? It was quite possible that she was utterly dick-whipped after one week, if being dick-whipped meant that she thought about the time they’d spent in bed at least a dozen times every hour.
“I still can’t believe you waited all these years to sleep with him,” Ashanti said.
“I never would have slept with Bryson back then. I had just broken up with Cameron.”
“That’s why youshouldhave banged the basketball player back then,” Ridley pointed out.
“Well, I didn’t,” Evie said. “It started as just a little innocent flirting—teasing and jokes, nothing too serious. As the summer went on, things started to get a bit more serious.” She shrugged. “And a little more, and a little more.”
“But no sex,” Ridley said.
“He did finger-bang me in the supply closet until I had the most intense orgasm I’d ever had up until that point,” Evie said.
“Yaaaassss!” Ashanti’s hands shot in the air like a referee signaling a touchdown.
