“I know, right?”
“She’s a stylist?”
“And he’s a venture capitalist.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, probably should have warned you.”
“Nah, it’s just . . . wow.”
The house is massive, set behind one of those gates that always seemed reserved for the rich and famous, which . . . Isobel and Matt are apparently the former.
“Being rich doesn’t make someone a bad person,” Bianca says, “but it hasn’t stopped Matt from really living up to the stereotype. His parents had money. He has money. I guess I shouldn’t throw stones after the check my parents just wrote me.”
“That’s . . . way different thanthis,” he says, wondering why anyone needs one turret on their home, let alone two. “Besides, all that money hasn’t bought them taste.”
“Oh God, yeah, he bought it before he proposed to her and she lost her mind. She loved it so much I didn’t have the heart to tell her how ugly I thought it was.”
He goes to get out of the car, but Bianca stops him with a touch of her hand to his wrist.
“Fun fact?” she says, her eyes still trained on the house.
“Hit me.”
“When we were in college, Izzy and Matt broke up for a hot minute freshman year.”
“So high school sweethearts with . . . a break in the middle?”
“Yeah, a couple of them actually – that was just the first, and a week later, he asked me out.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Nope.”
“You told Izzy?”
“Yeah, she dismissed it, said he was just trying to make her mad, which was probably true, but . . .”
“But she wants a family and the house probably helps,” he ventures a guess.
Bianca nods and rolls her eyes. “The house and the cars and vacations, and listen, I’m not saying money isn’t important. It is. We need it, and pretending like we don’t is just stupid, but it all just seems very empty . . . I shouldn’t talk about her like this, Izzy’s my friend and I do love her. I just don’t really agree with her choices.”
“You’ve talked to her about it?”
“Oh, we had an entire blowout over it.”
“When?”
“Four years ago, right before her wedding . . . Do you remember when I handed in all my final papers early because . . .”
“You had to go to the Bahamas.”
“That was for her bachelorette party.”
“Wait, wait . . .” His memory of that time cleared a bit. “Didn’t she also get married . . .”
“In Italy. Yep. I told her I wasn’t going to be able to come at all, let alone be in the wedding, and she lost her mind over it, but I just didn’t have the money. Matt paid for me to go.”
