PROLOGUE
MADDY
About Last Night
“Shots all around!”
My best friend, Maya Casey, sidles up to the high-top table I’m crowded around with the rest of our friends, followed closely by a server balancing a big tray of shots she sets down in the middle of the table.
“Jesus, Maya, exactly how many shots do you think we need? It’s Tuesday.” My cousin, Caitlin Parker, lawyer, rule follower, introvert in the extreme, eldest daughter personified, looks uneasily at all the liquor.
And, like, so much same. I feel an anticipatory hangover coming on.
“So many shots.” Maya hands around the glasses, aiming a wide grin in my direction. “All the shots really. Our girl is officially Dr. Maddy Wright and is starting her big, important new job tomorrow, so we’re celebrating. Besides, Tuesday is the best day for shots. Nothing fun ever happens on a Tuesday, so we’re making our own fun right the fuck now.”
“Come to mama.” Another one of my cousins, Sophie Sullivan, resident smart girl with the sunshiniest disposition on the planet and all-around girl next door grabs another shot and lifts them both towards me in toast, beaming grin on her face.
“We’re doing the respiratory system in gross anatomy tomorrow. Do you think it’s a bad idea to dissect lungs while hungover?” Sarah Wyles, Caitlin’s first cousin on her mom’s side and first-year med student at the University of Pittsburgh, looks thoughtfully at the full shot glass Maya pushes in front of her.
“Well, I can say for sure that it’s a terrible idea to go to court hungover, but I’m sure as shit doing it anyway.” Emerson Wyles, Sarah’s first cousin on her dad’s side and, along with Caitlin, an associate at the law firm Caitlin’s mom owns with my mom, Sophie’s mom, and another of their friends, gives us all a wicked grin and downs a shot.
“What the fuck, Emmy?” Maya says with a scowl. “We’re toasting our girl. Toast means we all drink together.”
Emmy shrugs, unrepentant. “I’m getting a head start. Slide another one my way and I’ll go again.”
I snort out a laugh and pick up my own shot glass, vowing to stop after this one. No way in hell am I starting my very first day as Director of Sports Psychology for the Renegades, Pittsburgh’s NFL team, hungover. I almost didn’t come out tonight. When the choice is between going out and not going out, I pretty much always choose not.
But then a couple hours ago, all five of my friends burst into my house with Maya leading the charge. She hugged me, then pushed me into my room and stood there while I put on the outfit she shoved into my hands, which included a short black dress so tight I can barely breathe, lacy lingerie, and heels that hurt my toes so badly I want to yank them off and throw them against the wall. Or possibly burn them in effigy.
But despite being wildly uncomfortable and trying to avoid a hangover, I love my girls madly, which is how I find myself in a dark, downtown bar with more alcohol than food, with most ofmy favorite people in the world, instead of where I would usually be on the night before starting a new job, which is at home, with a book, stress eating kettle corn with M&M’s and housing a six pack of orange soda.
“To our girl!” Maya raises a shot glass in one hand and wraps her other arm around my shoulders. “The gorgeous, brilliant, and insanely badass Dr. Maddy Wright, who is going to revolutionize mental health in the football world and make sure our guys have the healthiest brains in the league. Drink up ladies!”
Everyone tosses back their shot, and Maya wraps me in a hug. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Mads,” she says quietly. “You’re amazing.”
A well of emotion tightens my throat as I lean into my best friend. Maya and I have been friends since I came to live with my mom as a foster kid when I was seven, right before she started dating my dad. They both eventually adopted me, and since Maya is also adopted, and my parents knew hers, they introduced us right away and we became fast friends. Almost twenty-five years later, we’re still the same unlikely pairing we’ve always been. Maya, the outgoing, girly, pink-wearing wild child, and me, the hockey-playing, no pink ever homebody.
“Group hug!” Sophie yells, throwing her arms around us. Caitlin, Sarah, and Emmy follow suit until we’re all wrapped together right in the middle of the crowded bar. Glancing around the circle, I get a rush of warmth for these women who put aside whatever else they had going on to come celebrate my PhD graduation and brand-new job. They’re not just friends; they’re my family. Maya and I might be five or so years older than the rest of them, but especially as we’ve gotten older, that’s never seemed to matter.
I grew up in a big, tight-knit, found family of sorts with my mom—Emma—and her three best friends—Hallie, Julie, and Molly—at its center. Caitlin is Hallie and her husband Ben’s oldest, and Sophie belongs to Molly and her husband, Gabe. Sarah’s parents are Hallie’s younger sister Jo and her husband, mydad and Ben’s best friend, Jordan Wyles, and Emmy’s dad is Jordan’s brother, Cooper. All four Wyles brothers and their families live in Boston, but because both of Hallie’s sisters married a Wyles brother, we’re all kind of one big family at this point.
It’s a tangled web, but for a girl like me who didn’t know what a real family was until I was seven years old, I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.
“I love you guys,” I say, my voice a little thick. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Well for sure your life would be way more boring.” Emmy smiles, squeezing my shoulders.
“And way less pink.” Sarah glances down at her hot pink mini skirt and then over at Maya’s pink dress with a wry grin.
“You’ll never have to know what you’d do without us.” Caitlin’s tone is serious, her gray eyes focused on me. “Best friends forever. That’s the way we roll.”
“Sisters,” Sophie says, blue eyes sparkling. “We’re sisters, Mads, and family sticks. Always.”
“Now you sound like grandma.” Caitlin rolls her eyes, with a smile on her face.
I smile too, thinking of Caitlin’s grandma, Rachel, who has claimed all of us as her grandchildren, blood related or not. “Well, she’s not wrong. And there’s no one I would rather be in a big, complicated family situation with than you guys.”
“Us too,” Sophie says, leaning across our little circle to kiss my cheek. She’s stopped mid-motion by the beep of her cell phone. Pulling it out of the pocket of her tight black pants, she glances at the screen, cheeks flushing and lips tipping up in a small smile.
