“I hope you’re using the word void figuratively and not literally,” Suki quips. “Because some voids shouldn’t be filled with wine and chocolate. That’ll throw your pH right off. Give you a nasty yeast infection.”
We’re just killing time, sitting in the living room. Waiting for their other friends, Harry and Dex, to get here so we can all leave for Charlotte’s school play. She’s playing Pepper in Annie.
I’ve met Harry, but I haven’t met Dex yet. He’s an attorney, like Mara.
“Talia, have you found any jobs you want to apply for?” Lainey asks.
Our group text is very active, and they all know I was planning to look for job openings this morning after Lucien left for the road trip.
“I found two that sound promising. One in Indianapolis and one in Salt Lake City.”
“Those are both far away.” Suki frowns. “But I get it. You work in a field with limited openings.”
“Yeah. I love it here, but there’s not a single job opening in my field. There’s an athletic trainer job at a community college that I’m qualified for, but it’s not what I want.”
Darling comes racing into the room. Well, racing for him. It’s pretty much just a steady trot. He has a little tiara on his head and what looks like red lipstick on his snout.
“I wasn’t done yet!” Hallie, the youngest of the three girls, comes into the room on his heels, a tube of Chanel lipstick in hand. “Darling Maxwell, get back here.”
Darling sits down next to Suki and looks up at her.
“Is that my lipstick?” Suki asks Hallie.
Hallie looks from the lipstick to Suki, and then back at the lipstick again. “I don’t know.”
Suki arches her brows. “You don’t know? Where did you get it?”
“Um ... I think it was in your bathroom.”
“It was definitely in my bathroom, because it’s mine. That’s expensive lipstick, Hals, and it’s not meant for Darling.”
“Sorry.” Hallie turns the tube, lowering the lipstick back into the container.
“Check it for hairs,” Suki says. “I don’t enjoy picking wiry pig hairs out of my lipstick.”
Mara snort-laughs, then covers her mouth.
“We have to go!” Charlotte comes into the room, looking panicked. “I have to be there by six fifteen.”
“You will be,” Suki promises. “Harry and Dex are less than five minutes away.”
It’s less than a minute later when the door from the garage into the kitchen opens and Harry walks in, a handsome dark-haired man with him.
“Where’s my actress niece?” the man I assume is Dex asks. “I need to get pictures so I can say I saw her first performance when I’m watching her give her Oscars acceptance speech!”
Charlotte smiles. “I’m right here, but take a quick picture because we have to go.”
Harry, who is taller than Dex and has lighter hair, is carrying a small box with gold wrapping paper on it. As soon as Dex is finished taking a picture of Charlotte, Harry hands her the box.
“This is from your favorite uncles. We’re so proud of you.”
Suki gives her two friends a warm look. Carter can’t be here tonight, but Suki’s friends are making sure Charlotte feels special and loved. I don’t know Harry and Dex, but I know I like them.
“Oh!” Charlotte pulls a gold necklace from the box she unwrapped. “It has a theater mask on it. I love it. Thank you.”
She hugs them both and Suki gets a picture of them with her between them. Charlotte wants to wear the necklace, so Mara fastens it behind her neck while Suki yells upstairs for the oldest of the girls, Olivia, to come down.
“How long is this going to take?” Olivia asks when she gets downstairs.
