Chapter one
~EMMA~
"No more men. I mean it this time."
I lean against the sticky bar at Tropicana's Beachside Karaoke, waving my margarita for emphasis.
The Miami night hums with salt air and bad decisions.
Neon pink and turquoise lights pulse over the patio at the half-dive, half-daydream bar perched at the edge of South Beach.
Ceiling fans whirl lazily above, doing nothing to combat the heat clinging to my skin—or to the glass of my melting margarita, which Icontinue waving.
The lime wedge on its edge launches itself at Sasha's face, but she dodges with the ease of someone who's endured seven years of my dramatic hand gestures.
"You said that last month," Riley points out.
Across from Sasha, my other enabling best friend lounges on a barstool in cutoff shorts, her pale freckled shoulders sun-pink from our day at the beach. She picks at the salt rim on her glass.
"Right before you drunk-texted Josh asking if he thought about you,” she announces.
My face burns. "That was a moment of weakness. Tequila-induced temporary insanity. It won't happen again."
"Because you blocked him?" Sasha asks hopefully, her glossy black curls bouncing. Sasha always looks effortlessly glamorous—even at a beach bar.
Tonight she’s in a white linen jumpsuit that hugs her caramel-brown skin like a summer dream.
I roll my eyes. “Because I deleted his number, blocked him on everything, and may have also left a one-starYelp review for his CrossFit gym calling it “'a breeding ground for ego and mediocre dick.’”
Riley chokes on her drink. "Emma. You didn't."
"I absolutely did. And I'd do it again." I take a defiant sip of my margarita, ignoring the fact that it's mostly slush at this point. "Besides, this weekend is about me. New Emma. Independent Emma. Emma who doesn't need a man to validate her existence."
"Independent Emma who's been checking her phone every five minutes?" Sasha's eyebrow arches in that infuriatingly knowing way.
I flip her off. "I'm checking work emails. My new job starts soon and I want to be—"
"—prepared, we know,” Riley slips in. "Babe, you've read the employee handbook three times. You know more about Titan Industries' strategic development protocols than their actual employees probably do. You're allowed to relax."
The problem is, I don't know how to relax anymore.
Not since Iwalked into my apartment four months ago to find Josh enthusiastically redefining "Netflix and chill" with She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named.
On my couch.
The couch I'd saved six months to buy.
“Fine.” I drain what’s left of my drink and slap it on the bar. “I’m relaxing. See? This is my relaxed face.”
Sasha tilts her head. “You look constipated.”
Riley squints. “You look like you’re about to murder someone.”
Before I can defend my resting bitch face, the karaoke MC—a sunburned man in a Hawaiian shirt that's committing crimes against eyeballs—announces the next performer.
"Alright, folks! Let's give it up for Brad, singing 'Total Eclipse of the Heart!'"
Brad, it turns out, is a bachelor party attendee who's approximately four beerspast coherent.
