“In a week. But this one will be the worst because it’s first. No one’s seen me since my divorce was finalized, and they’re going to be lying in wait like a pack of lions.”
“I have a plan for my replacement. I’ll meet you at your house tonight. With a bottle of wine.”
“Make it two,” I say as I hang up the phone.
* * *
“No way in hell.” I nearly drop my half-empty glass of wine onto my living room floor as I vigorously slash an emphatic “no” through the air with my hand. “I can’t.”
“But why not?” Hayley asks only in the way a person who knows why I’m saying no can. Her auburn hair is piled messily on top of her head, and her pale blue eyes light up as she carries on explaining her crazy-ass plan to me. “I know your backstory with Jenson Beau, Olivia.”
“So then you understand why Jenson can’t, under any circumstances, be my date to a family event. We were raised like cousins.”
“But you aren’t cousins.”
“That’s a technicality our families refuse to acknowledge.”
Hayley’s clearly not listening because she’s already pulled Jenson’s Facebook page up on my laptop. “Message him.”
“No.”
“If you’re saying no, then you’re simply not drunk enough.”
“What do you want me to say to him—‘my divorce was just finalized, and I’m single for the first time since forever, and I’m hoping you are too so we can pick up where we left off when we were kids? Oh, and before you had children with another woman?’”
“It sounded better inside my head, but yes! Do it!”
“I can’t. Jenson and I are…friends now. That’s it. His mom said something about a new woman he was seeing.” A comment Cindy made off-handedly but that I filed away in my mind. “She said it a while ago, but I never heard about any break-up. So they’re probably still together.”
“So ask him to be your friend-date. You know, to replace me. Nothing romantic.”
Friend-date.
My drunken fingers hover over the keyboard. Jenson Beau was always there for me. And even though we went our separate ways when he left for college clear across the country, we kept in touch. And we see each other sporadically on holidays and at family gatherings. I love his two sons. And they love me. But the way I feel about their father…that was never quite as easy to define.
Hayley taps the screen as she refills my wine glass.
I chug down the alcohol faster than I probably should, but between that and the first bottle Hayley and I already finished, it’s more than enough to get a full-on buzz going.
I stare at Jenson’s handsome face on his social media page. For a moment, I feel like those bottomless green eyes are staring right at me. Begging me to act.
And I start typing.
Thanks to the wine coursing through my veins, I write quickly and with no filter. When I finish, I lean back and let out a big breath.
Before I can even reread what I wrote, Hayley, with those lightning-quick editor fingers of hers, reaches around me and hits Send.
No, no, no, no, no.
What have I just done?
* * *
Jenson
I carry Connor into my mom’s house and put him to bed in the guest room she has set up with twin beds. Kyle always needs time to wind down after one of our trips, so I set us up in the den and fire up the iPad.
“How about we watch a wildlife video?” I ask him as he snuggles into my chest.
