“After Daisy died, I connected with a group of other widowers. Raymond, Zion, and Benji. Ray and Zi live in Manhattan and Benji’s on Long Island. We try to get together every few months, but we mostly keep in touch through text. Fucking Zion and Benji think it’s hilarious to keep changing the name of our group chat. Last night one of them changed it to TheGriefGuys, while Millie named the chat Cam and Ezra and I use TheGoodGuys.
“In my, um, excitement… after our kiss”—I conveniently leave out the part where I jerked off—“I told them I kissed you, then I silenced my phone and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, Cam was yelling at me in all caps.”
Claire covers her face, her shoulders shaking.
“Are you laughing?”
She snorts. “Nope.”
“It’s not funny.” Despite my claim, I grin. “I still haven’t texted them back. I have no clue what to say. What did they say to you? What did you tell them?”
She straightens up. “I told them I can fuck whoever I want and it’s none of their goddamn business.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “Claire!”
“Kidding.” She giggles. “I haven’t replied either. Cam called earlier, but I was busy with Bea. Iamserious about it not being their business, though.”
“We can’t ignore them forever,” I tell her, digging my phone out of my pocket.
She does the same.
I don’t know about her, but I have three more unread texts. Plus two missed calls.
Cam
Asher. Why the hell are you not answering?
Cam
Tell my sister to answer her damn phone
Ezra
Cam, STFU and leave the man alone. Asher, please put him out of his misery. He’s insufferable
Claire huffs out a laugh. “Now Joey’s involved.”
She holds her phone out, showing me a GIF of Desi Arnaz. The text reads: Lucy, you have some splainin’ to do.
I can’t help but chuckle. That is until a notification banner appears at the top of Claire’s screen, and my sister’s name appears.
Millie
Hey future sis-in-law! Heard about the kiss…
I stiffen, and Claire gives me a confused frown, then flips the phone around and taps on the screen. Her eyes go wide as she whispers “fuck” under her breath.
“Okay. Time for damage control,” she says. “We kissed one time. It’s not like we’ve actually hooked up yet. How do we even know if this,” she waves a hand between us, “is gonna work out, anyway? I know we agreed to do the roomies-with-bennies thing, but you could be really bad in bed and the whole thing would be over before it even really began. They’re blowing it way out of proportion.”
“Hold up.” I cross my arms in front of me. “Why would you think I could be bad in bed?”
She shrugs.
“Do you make a habit of sleeping with men who are bad in bed?”
She shrugs again.
I haven’t the slightest clue what her sexual history is, and other than knowing if her tests are clear, it’s none of my business.
