I jump up and head to the kitchen, grabbing the bottle of vodka Grandma Jude had brought over and the plastic shot glasses I’d picked up from the corner store on my way home tonight, because I still haven’t unpacked the last of my boxes. And I refuse to drink straight out of the bottle again.
The memory of drinking straight out of the bottle has been forever altered in my brain after sharing that tequila with Zach.
Zach, who I’m fairly certain has been avoiding me.
That familiar pang of rejection squeezes my chest all over again. Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised.
Setting everything down on the coffee table, I pour out six shots and hand them out around the table. Mom and Darci both groan in protest, but take them anyway.
“We’re never going back to regular Scrabble, are we?” Mom asks, sighing as she looks around the table at us.
“Nope,” I say, popping the P and shaking my head. Holding my shot glass up, they follow suit. “To the induction of Dirty Word Scrabble.”
My mom tips her shot back and I laugh when she makes a face as the liquor goes down.
She’s a force to be reckoned with. Having grown up with Grandma Jude as her mom, I suppose she’s had to be. Business smart. Kind to a fault. Loyal as they come.
She and Darci have gotten closer over the last few months since Nolan passed, an unfortunate bond that isn’t fair to either of them. Widows.
Dad from a very brief battle with cancer that took him way too fast six years ago. Nolan from a widow maker heart attack while he was driving. He was only forty-five.
Both gone too soon. Both leaving families. Wives and kids.
None of it’s fair.
Shaking myself out of the melancholy thoughts, I look around the circle of women surrounding me. What a bunch of bad asses.
Fierce. Independent. Confident. Successful. Gorgeous to boot.
Pouring out another round of shots, I raise mine and wait for the others to follow suit. “To the baddest group of women I know.”
“I’ll cheers to that,” Grandma Jude says, lifting her shot glass. “My girls.”
Twenty-Two
Zach
The laughter coming from one of the open windows of Lou’s house is loud. It’s the kind of laughter that is infectious. Glancing at the window, the light glowing from inside casting a beam of golden light to bisect the yard in the darkness.
Stepping out of my truck, I shake my head as another round of laughter rings out. Several unfamiliar cars are parked in Lou’s driveway. The girls climb out of the truck behind me.
“No!” I hear one female voice protest amid another roar of laughter. “Donotlook up the definition ofsnowballing, Grandma Jude! We can’t use that!”
I stop in my tracks. What in the world? Snowballing?
“I’m going to pee my pants,” another female voice drifts out between shouts of laughter.
“Ohmygod!” another voice, this one in shock or disgust, and the laughing only gets louder.
Curious, I pull my phone out of my back pocket and open the search engine app, quickly looking up the definition.
My cheeks flame. Holy fuck. What the hell are these women doing talking aboutthat?
“Girls,” I mutter quickly, closing my phone and notching my chin at the door. “Inside.”
“What’s snow—”
“Something to do with winter sports, probably,” Bailey says, shrugging, before following Abigail and Chloe up the two steps to our front porch.
