“Oh, come on,” Chloe protests. “At least tell us how he kisses? Helookslike a good kisser.”
Erik points at her. “Right? That bottom lip should be illegal.”
“Sorry, friends. I don’t kiss and tell,” she says with what she hopes is a mysterious shrug of her shoulders. She puts her drink down onto the coffee table, holds out her hand for her phone and Erik gives it back. “And with that, I think it’s time to go home.”
She stands, dumping her phone into her bag, and after bussing Frankie’s cheek lightly for hosting tonight, she heads for the door.
Groans of protest follow in her wake, but then she hears the rest of them standing, shuffling around for their things, thanking Frankie, who waves off the praise as they head out into the night.
“Don’t Uber,” Isobel says, as she follows behind Bianca. “I’ll drive you home.”
Bianca shrugs and doesn’t protest that she lives too far away like she’s pretty sure Izzy was hoping she’d do; she just doesn’t have it in her. The adrenaline rush she’d been operating on since those first few texts popped up on her screen and after her interview is gone now, replaced with this sullen heaviness in her chest that she has no interest in fighting.
She slides into the front seat of Isobel’s Audi, sinking into the soft leather and letting the scent of new car and the high-powered air conditioning waft over her as they wind their way through the always crowded streets. For a while she busies herself with her phone, swiping mindlessly through her social media, her attention focused to hopefully avoid any further conversation about Xavier’s carnal proficiency.
“You know if you do decide you want to get married abroad, there’s a whole process to it. I could walk you through it if you want.”
Isobel and Matt got married in Italy a few years ago. Bianca thought it was absolutely crazy at the time and her opinion hasn’t changed at all. It cost her literally thousands of dollars, on top of all the normal bridal party costs, to be there.
“Yeah, we’re not getting married in Greece.”
“Have you thought about where yet, then? Or a date? You shouldn’t let him get away with just being engaged for too long. He’ll get comfortable and then you’ll just be perpetually together, like Chloe and . . . what’s her boyfriend’s name again?”
Izzy’s met Josh a bunch of times and never seems to be able to remember his name. She’s changed a lot over the years – not better or worse than the girl Bianca made friends with, just . . . different. The kind of person who can’t be bothered to remember the name of a friend of a friend anymore, just caught up in her own life.
“Josh,” Bianca supplies.
“Right, Josh. I wouldn’t stand for that. I would have told him he needed to propose or it was over. You were smart to make Xavier ask you before you graduated.”
Something inside of her, something she’s not really proud of, twists. “I didn’t make him do anything. He did it completely unprompted. I’d never even thought about marriage until he was asking. I still wasn’t sure even when he gave me the ring.”
A little grin, both knowing and condescending, quirks up at the corner of Izzy’s mouth. “Well, good thing one of you did or you’d end up forty and alone.”
And the thing that twisted inside her pulls taut, but it doesn’t snap. She can’t let it, because if she does, words she can’t take back will spill out of her mouth, likebetter forty and alone thansettling for the first guy to askor evenyou were incapable of being happy for me until some guy gave me a ring.
Either would be the truth.
But it wouldn’t be fair, even though it’s the absolute truth, even though it’s what she’s thought for a really long time; it would be taking out her frustrations witheveryoneon just Izzy.
They’re stopped at a light and when Bianca looks out the window, she recognizes the Ralph’s just a couple of blocks away from home. She needs some air. Needs to get out of this car before she absolutely explodes. She’ll send a text to Izzy apologizing later, but she just needs to get out.
“Thanks for the ride,” she says to her friend’s reflection in the passenger window. “I can walk from here.”
Chapter 7
“She’ll be home soon,” he murmurs to Amelia, who’s been gracious enough to allow him to scratch underneath her chin.
Xavier stares at the bright screen, nudging his blue-light glasses back up his nose. This slide isn’t quite right. It’s been bothering him for weeks now and thus he put it off until everything else felt solid, but even with all that time away, nothing’s changed.
“Fuck it. It’s good enough,” he says, moving on to the next slide that just needs a quick proofread.
No embarrassing spelling mistakes. Grammar is good.
Fantastic.
Moving on.
He’s in the zone, pushing through from slide to slide, for how long he has no idea, when Amelia leaps up and darts straight for the front door.
