“He’s always asleep by now.” Marlee crept her car toward their house.
Her Scotty was always asleep, yet here he was, living it up inherhouse. Officially, it was their house, but he was supposed to be mourning the demise of their relationship, not throwing the party he’d never let her have without loads of guilt and a ton of compromise.
Her breath skipped over the pale blue Mercedes parked nearest to the door. Her former friend Brittney’s car.
There was Toby’s. And Madison’s.
Jeffrey’s.
Holy shit. They were all here. The ones who had avoided her for weeks.
Numbness settled over her breastbone, down her spine. She wasn’t an idiot. She totally understood that they were just putting her off all this time. She totally got that they didn’t want to spend time with someone who had no money to pay for things. But having it tossed in her face this way made her really want to throw some orange Halloween dicks at them.
When Marlee had asked Brittney to hang out, Brittney told her she was in Tahiti for the month. Toby was in Ireland. Jeff worked late every night at his chain of bath salt stores.
Apparently, Brittney and Toby could catch a flight home for Scotty’s party. And Jeff didn’t need to sell salt scrubs at midnight anymore.
“Are you okay?” Heather asked.
Marlee’s recommitment to dildoing the trees was strong. “Fine. The fact that my ex-fiancé dumped me and then took all my friends means nothing.”
Heather squeezed Marlee’s arm. “You have better friends now.”
Deep down, Marlee knew that, but up at the surface? Tonight? Betrayal wasn’t a strong enough word.
She drove along the road, parking in front of Mrs. Morris’s place. The lights in that house were off. Mrs. Morris had either had her own sleeping pill or she was over at Marlee’s house.
Car in park, Marlee swallowed her feelings like a good girl. Eli pulled in behind her and got out of the Jeep. His reflection in her rearview mirror acted as a reassurance that Scotty may have gotten everything that didn’t matter when they broke up, but she’d found someone who really did.
The thought made her pause.
Shit.
Was she falling for Eli Howard? She could not be falling for Eli Howard.
Eli who never made commitments. Eli who had divorce papers drawn up and ready within days of their marriage. Eli who would break her heart when their ninety days were up if she wasn’t careful.
Her stomach turned over on itself again. She pushed open the car door to step outside.
She couldn’t be falling in love with Eli, she hadn’t even had a rebound fling yet.
“Marlee?” Heather asked, eyes soft, voice gentle. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She was only falling in love with the guy who had the power to totally decimate the remains of her tattered heart.
“She’s got man trouble,” Dottie announced, extracting herself from the backseat. “I can see it in her eyes.”
“Who has man trouble?” Babushka stage-whispered from directly beside Marlee.
Marlee about jumped out of her Christian Louboutin black leather ankle boots. Where the hell had the woman come from?
“No one,” Heather whispered back a touch too quickly.
“It’s never no von.” Babushka pulled a ski mask over her face. “Is it Etta again? I vill talk to her.”
They’d all dressed in black. The old women all brought along ski masks, which Marlee found hysterical and frightening at the same time. Frightening because of the fact that they had them already, and it was pretty clear that none of them were skiers, what with the canes and the walkers.
“Do we need ski masks?” Heather asked.
