Shanti was like me with the whole money thing. She didn’t live beyond her means. She kept healthy amounts in savings and checking, and since she didn’t have some loser mooch boyfriend draining her dry, her savings were to the point she was hoping to buy her own condo or townhouse in the next year or two.
None of us wanted to leave the Oasis.
But all of us knew life would go on.
Like, now that they were getting hitched, we knew Alexis and Jacob weren’t going to stay there forever. Not after they got married.
Same with Raye and Cap.
And we were all expecting Jessie to come in any day and share she was letting go of her apartment and moving in officially with Eric. They spent every night together at one or the other of their places anyway, dragging their cat in between. That was bound to get tired. And Eric had a massive house in the Biltmore area.
Same with Harlow.
Javi owned a townhouse, and they were back and forth all the time too (sans cat, though, they were in pet discussions, not sure whether to adopt a cat or a dog—Javi wanted a cat, Harlow wanted a dog, I suspected, in the end, they’d get both). They were a newer couple, but she loved his place. They were decorating it together. The writing was on the wall.
It didn’t occur to me that someone (and I was so happy it was Shanti) would get a windfall with that bet, and it would mean good things.
Shanti had a new model, but used, baby-blue Ford Bronco. She’d bought it two years ago because she fell in love with it. I wouldn’t have said it was very her, until I saw her behind the wheel of it. But she’d hadn’t had enough to buy it outright and keep her savings healthy and her trajectory to owning her own home true, and that chafed.
Now it would be fully her baby.
Because I jumped Gabe last night.
I hugged her again.
“Did you do that on purpose?”
I turned at Luna’s question to see her eyes narrowed on me.
“She knew Shanti’s timeslot,” Raye shared. “Shanti told her last night.”
“Ohmigod, you fixed it!” Jessie crowed. “That is so rad!”
“I didn’t fix it,” I refuted. “It just happened.”
Jessie ignored me and turned to Luna. “When we do your pool, you need to fix it. I call fixing it for me because Henny needs a new cat tree.”
“Henny barely leaves your couch,” Harlow said. “He’s the laziest kitty I know.”
“He’s had a rough life,” Jessie retorted. “He’s earned his lazy.”
“There’s not going to be a pool for me,” Luna snapped, her voice harsh, and we all knew why.
Because she was into Knox, and he was now into someone else.
“I don’t know,” Harlow put in. “Now that Knox is…” she trailed off when everyone gave her a look, but even so, persevered, “Brady seems to be sniffing around.”
Hang on.
What?
“He is?” I asked.
“They went out for drinks the other night,” Raye informed us.
We all turned to a pink-cheeked Luna who was glaring at Raye.
“Bitch! Uncool!” she bit at Raye.
