As if I could.
Parts of that night, Samantha and Nolan’s coed bachelor/bachelorette party, were seared into my brain despite the copious amounts of alcohol I drank. (And later vomited up.) It didn’t help matters that we were on a yacht in New York harbor for five hours, where thirty-five people got increasingly drunk and horny as the night wore on, resulting in absolute debauchery by the time we docked. Or so I heard, since I passed out before the end of it.
It had started off innocently enough, with the guys playing drinking games clustered around Nolan and the girls toasting Samantha with bottomless champagne. But as the sun went down and the DJ pumped up, we all started acting stupid on the dance floor. I have vague memories of twerking so hard that my dress flipped up, and I didn’t even care.
I usually wasn’t the center of attention, but that night I drank it up, literally and metaphorically. Maybe it was the happiness of everyone being together again to celebrate our friends, or because I was wearing a pretty dress and felt four-glasses-in invincible on a rented yacht, or maybe it was because I could sense Andrew’s eyes resting on me over and over again throughout the night. In retrospect I knew that half the reason I put on such a show was because Ilikedthe idea of him staring at me again. I felt beautiful, and I wanted him to know it.
I squeezed my eyes shut when I thought about what happened later that night.
Bored by my lack of interaction, Edith moved off of me anddown toward where Birdie was coiled in a tight circle sound asleep. She watched her adopted big sister for a moment, then leaned down to chomp on her tail, eliciting a shocked yelp from Birdie.
“Excuseme!” I scolded. “That was not nice, young lady. That’s not how we roll in this household.”
Edith parried at Birdie again, getting a low growl from her. I expected it to be enough to get the puppy to stand down, but Edith shocked us both and let out a surprisingly unpuppylike growl back.
“Whoa, absolutely not. Nope! Let’s go.”
I stood up and moved Edith off the couch, then leaned over to give Birdie a quick conciliatory kiss. “Sorry about her.”
I felt the smallest flicker of concern over the behavior. Edith was supposed to be my wallflower, my in-need-of-support puppy who would look to her elder for life lessons. What I’d just seen on the couch was an inappropriate response to a totally normal correction from Bird. Most puppies would offer a deferential reaction when scolded that way, but Edith had doubled down. I needed to keep an eye on it.
“Let’s give you something to do,” I said to her as she battled the hem of my sweatpants.
I walked to the freezer, where I had a supply of peanut butter–stuffed rubber toys ready for her. We were heading into teething season, which meant I needed an arsenal to keep her from chewing up the house. Birdie was the rare dog who didn’t like peanut butter so I never had to worry about accidental skirmishes between them over the toys, but then again, now that I was seeing this new side of Edith, who knew what was in store?
She got to work on it with a velociraptor’s intensity so I rejoined Bird on the couch, curling myself around her body.
“Sorry about that,” I murmured, pressing a kiss on the top of her head. “She’ll figure it out.”
I hoped.
I sat up and refocused on my laptop. The Howl-o-Ween party RSVPs were still pouring in thanks to an old-school ad in theWismer Registerand an Insta shout-out from a former client who’d gone on to become a doggy influencer. It was going to be my biggest event yet.
Was I an asshole because I’d rented traffic cones to cordon off my section of the parking lot? Maybe. But I wasn’t about to let Andrew’s crowd take over my precious spaces.
Deep down I knew that I could change the power dynamic with the flick of a pen on a contract. Of course, I refused to think about the logistics required to flick that pen, but still. The idea that Icouldbuy the whole damn building if I wanted to comforted me a little.
The hurdles necessary to make that happen? Impossible to clear.
My dad had left money for us because of course he would. Keeping us safe and secure was what he did. My mom kept pushing to finalize the details with me, but I preferred to ignore it. I didn’t want assets, I wantedhim. I pretended like his “legacy” for me didn’t exist.
In the meantime I needed to focus on securing Roz’s space.
I sniffed back a painful prickle in my nose and tallied my attendees again. Twenty-five definites, six maybes. Twelve parking spaces.
If I was honest with myself I could admit that it wasn’t aboutparking. My clients could park along the street if they had to. The point was theyshouldn’thave to. After-hours had always belonged to me, ever since I launched Frolic. Now Andrew had moved in and taken over, before he even opened his doors.
My phone pinged with a text. Of all people it was Patricia, as if she could tell I was thinking negative thoughts about her son, asking if it was okay to call me.It’s too much to write, said her text.
My phone rang seconds after I said she could.
“I’m so sorry to call you after hours, but we’ve had an incident. Darling knocked me over today.”
Darling was the queen of the Mean Girl goats, the bravest of the three, which wasn’t saying much.
“Oh no! Are you okay?”
“Just a little sore, that’s all. The leaves and mud cushioned my fall. But it wasn’t pretty.”
