Claire pulled some cash from her wallet. “I do.”
“I love your sex-deprived ass.”
Claire laughed. “You better.”
“Forever and ever.” She reached out and stilled Claire’s hand on her wallet. “So let’s take this slow.”
“Take what slow?”
“Dating. Finding someone you like.”
“Okay,” Claire said carefully. “What do you—”
“One number. That’s it. Just get someone’s phone number tonight and go from there.”
Claire’s shoulders immediately curled around her neck. Everyone she’d ever been with, she’d met organically. Josh was her high schoolboyfriend. Nicole was a local author who wrote vegan cookbooks and had come into the bookstore to sign her latest on plant-based desserts. Claire handled the signing, they started talking, and that was that. Iris had set up Claire with Nathan. She’d never picked up someone in a bar, but having watched Iris do it at least a dozen times since high school, she’d always wondered what it was like, the thrill and excitement.
Claire forced herself to relax. This was why she’d come out tonight, after all. She wanted... something. Needed someone—even it was just thepossibilityof someone—to make sure she didn’t fall back into bad habits with Josh. She wasn’t in love with him; she knew that. But her body got stupid around him. Always had.
That didn’t change the fact that the idea of walking up to some stranger and essentially sayingHow you doing?made her feel like she needed to puke.
“Starting tomorrow,” Iris said, sensing her impending freak-out, “we’re locked into a solid two weeks of wedding tomfoolery.”
“Tomfoolery?”
Iris ignored her. “I’m talking brunches, lace doilies, manicures, and a sexless bachelorette party.”
Claire laughed, remembering how Astrid had strictly forbidden anything phallic at her last hurrah. No penis straws, no penis cakes, and absolutely no dildos. Iris was hugely disappointed.
“Not to mention,” Iris said, lowering her voice and leaning forward, “we’ve got to have the big t-a-l-k with Astrid, for which she’ll probably hate us for the rest of her life.”
Claire closed her eyes and breathed in slowly through her nose. Ever since Astrid had shocked even Iris into speechlessness a few months ago by announcing that she was marrying Spencer Hale, whom she’d barely dated for ninety days and with whom her best friends had only minimally interacted, Claire and Iris had beenfunctioning on a constant low level of panic. He was handsome and rich and the only dentist in town and couldn’t seem to get through a meal without putting some ridiculous demand on Astrid.
Hand me the salt, would you, babe?
Ask the waiter to bring another beer, would you, babe?
You didn’t want the rest of your fries, did you, babe?
And what’s more, Astrid complied every single time, even though the fucking salt was right in front of his golden-boy face.
Iris and Claire kept saying they were going to talk to her about it, make a plan, but weeks turned into months, and they still hadn’t figured out how to explain to Astrid that the supposed love of her life was a total dickwad. Because he was the worst kind of dickwad, surreptitious and smiling. Half the time, Claire couldn’t put her finger on what irked her so much about the man, only that she felt like she was hanging out with a poisonous snake anytime she was in the same room with him, which wasn’t exactly a reason to tell Astrid to run for the hills. Besides, Astrid liked facts, numbers, and neither Claire nor Iris had any to give, just bad vibes they couldn’t shake.
“Your point?” Claire asked.
“My point is that the next couple weeks are going to suck, and there’s no way you’re going to find someone in Vivian’s Tearoom or at a spa at Blue Lily Vineyard.”
Claire balked. “Hey, some sexy stuff can happen at spas.”
“Not at the kind Astrid frequents.”
“You never know.”
Iris leaned forward. “So you’re telling me that you’d get busy with your masseuse if they were into it? Like”—she flicked her eyes down to Claire’s purportedly neglected nether regions and waggled her eyebrows—“busy.”
“Oh, for sure.”
“Bullshit.”
