“I think Brighton is, at least,” Manish said, then tipped his wineglass at her. “Sorry, no offense.”
“None taken,” Brighton said. She couldn’t possibly be offended. She was too damn busy trying to get this mime sitting across from her to break character.
“So, Lola,” she said, changing tactics. “How do you like New York? Dream come true?”
It was a dick move, she knew. They’d only lived in Manhattan together for a short time before everything fell apart—New York had always been Lola’s dream and one of the main reasons why Brighton had done what she did on their wedding day. New Yorkhad never been her own dream, and they both knew it. Still, she just needed Lola to look at her. Say something. Do anything other than remain so infuriatingly composed.
But Lola just tilted her head at Brighton, her expression completely blank.
“Lola?” Sloane said. “Who—”
“My name is Charlotte,” Lola said evenly.
“My apologies,” Brighton said, scraping her spoon across the bottom of her bowl. “You look a little like someone I used to know.”
Lola lifted her glass of wine, sipped it primly. “No worries. And yes, I love New York. My life there is everything I ever wanted.”
“Oh, I bet it is.”
“And yours?” Lola asked. “You’re amusician, right?”
She said the wordmusicianas she might sayherpes, and Brighton felt her spine stiffen. She opened her mouth to assert that her life was exactly what she wanted, what she had dreamed of, goddammit.
But that wasn’t exactly true, was it?
Still, Lola—Charlotte—didn’t need to know that.
And Brighton never, ever wanted her to.
“Yes,” she said. “I am. And it’s great. It’s just really, really great.”
“Great,” Lola said. “You have an album, then? I mean, I assume so.”
Brighton’s jaw tightened, her throat suddenly aching. Was she really here, in fucking Colorado, trying to one-up her ex?
Not just her ex.Lola.
“Hey, Mom,” Adele said, clearing her throat and squeezing Brighton’s leg under the table. “Did you know Noni hasn’t been on a date in three years?”
Sloane’s mouth dropped open. “You rat fink!”
“Three years? Really, Sloane?” Nina asked.
“Well, Deli eats women outon top of her barafter hours,” Sloane said. “Talk about a health code violation.”
“That was once!” Adele said. “Told to you in confidence! And I cleaned it…you know…after.”
“I think this conversation is the definition of TMI,” Nina said, sipping her wine.
Manish and Elle burst out laughing, while the weight of her interaction with Lola—or, rather, their soft-spoken pissing match—felt like a mountain on Brighton’s chest. They watched each other for a split second—not long enough for anyone to notice but long enough for Lola to raise a single brow, then look away as though Brighton were nothing more than a nuisance, an annoying fly buzzing around her personal space. She even swiped her hand through the air in front of her face, as though batting Brighton away, followed by a tuck of hair behind her ear.
Perfectly natural.
Brighton looked away too, refused to look down, and took a large gulp of the red wine Nina had poured them all for dinner. She absolutely had not noticed that Lola was on her second glass since they’d all sat down to eat, and she certainly didn’t recall that red wine always, always gave Lola a headache if she had more than a few sips, or that Lola’s beverage of choice was a Manhattan with top-shelf bourbon, a product of Anna Donovan’s taste and lack of care when Lola had sneaked sips as a teenager.
Nope, Brighton didn’t think about any of that at all.
“So,” Nina said, lifting her wine, “moving on from the topic of cunnilingus—”
