‘He’s obviously got it in him to forgive and start again when someone really matters to him.’ Lexi is trying to keep things light, but her voice is cracking. Erin squeezes her shoulder. ‘But no. It was going okay. I was holding my own. And then, just as I left, I turned and my handbag somehow caught Amanda’s wine and it spilled on her top. A full glass of red wine on her pale pink top.’
Erin snorts.
‘What? It’s not funny.’
And then, just like that, Lexi gets it, the funny side of it. She snorts too. ‘All right,’ she tells Erin. ‘Maybe it is a little funny.’
‘I think it calls for a high five, actually.’ Erin holds up her hand, but because Lexi is laughing, she somehow misses, and that makes her snort, and then they’re both laughing uncontrollably, in that ridiculous way you do when something isn’t really that funny but it’s like alien joy has taken over your body.
Lexi struggles to catch her breath. She clutches her stomach in delightful pain. It feels good to laugh like this: everything has been so serious and so hard lately, and this is like medicine. It feels good to laugh with Erin, specifically, too: they’ve both been so busy, and Lexi hates that they’re drifting apart. The thought of that deflates Lexi’s mood just a little bit, which is actually a welcome relief, because it means a chance to catch her breath, and for the sharp pain in her belly to subside. She doesn’t meet Erin’s gaze. She can’t, because if she does, they’ll be off again.
‘It’s not like you to laugh at someone else’s misfortune,’ Lexi says, still avoiding eye contact. Erin would be mortified if she was the one to spill red wine on someone’s top. She’d probably already be online, googling where she can buy a new one, or looking up miracle remedies to clean the stain. But another thing about Erin is also true: that she is fiercely loyal.
‘You know what they say. The enemy of my friend...’
Lexi hadn’t thought about Amanda as an enemy, exactly. More an inconvenience or an irritation. Maybe even a rival, hypothetically, if she wanted Sam, which clearly she doesn’t, because who would want to be with a ruthless capitalist who can’t forgive a small flight of fancy, even if he is kind and thoughtful and hot, a sensitive pianist type with talented finger skills in multiple arenas? Nobody, that’s who. And certainly not Lexi.
‘Well, I appreciate you being on my side.’
‘Of course. And I appreciate the amusing visual image.’
Lexi and Erin pause to savour it, and giggles rise up in Lexi’s throat again. ‘If I’d been trying to do it, I probably would have failed. My bag had to catch the glass in just the right way, you know?’
‘Exactly,’ Erin says. ‘That’s what makes it so delicious. The unintentionality. And yet somehow your subconscious also played a part.’
‘It took over my handbag, like some kind of ghost.’
‘Exactly. Way to go, Lexi’s subconscious.’ Erin holds her hand up again for another high five, and this time Lexi’s lands on hers with a satisfying clap.
It’s late, and they should both go to bed, but this is the most fun, the most bonding, that Lexi and Erin have had in a while, and neither of them quite wants to let the moment go.
‘So... I take it you really like him then?’
If Lexi did, this would be the moment to admit that. But she doesn’t. She was crying because she was embarrassed; that’s all.
‘What’s the point if he’s back with his girlfriend already?’
‘That isn’t really what I’m asking,’ Erin says gently, but, of course, Lexi knew that.
She shrugs, because she doesn’t want to admit her feelings out loud, even to herself. But she can see in Erin’s eyes that she’s drawn her own conclusions.
‘You don’t like him,’ Lexi reminds her.
‘But it doesn’t matter ifIlike him,’ she says, which is infuriatingly sensible of her. ‘It only matters ifyoudo.’
‘None of it matters if he has a girlfriend.’
‘Who he dumped once before.’
‘C’mon, Erin. You’ve never heard of second-chance romance?’
‘Of course I have. I’ve readPersuasionlike everybody else I respect. But that’s exactly why I’m rooting for you and him.’
Lexi rolls her eyes, but she’s touched. And a little confused. ‘What happened to him being a womaniser?’
‘I guess I’m hoping that he likes you enough to reform his ways.’
‘That makes two of us. But Amanda really broke him, I think.’ Lexi fills Erin in on the backstory, Sam giving up everything including his beloved New York City to come and live in DC with her, only to find out she was using him all along.
