“Okay then, super sleuth.” I place both elbows on the table. “If that’s the case, then why has he rejected me not once”—I hold up my index finger—“but twice?” I ask, adding my middle finger.
“Looks like we have a mystery on our hands.” She rubs her palms together. “And do you know what that means?”
I don’t.
I have absolutely no freaking clue where the hell she is going with this. But apparently Vonnie and Poppy do.
“Oh fuck. I knew I was going to live to regret that,” Vonnie groans.
Poppy on the other hand, well, she’s clapping and her belly is bouncing in beat with her hair. “Ace is at his friend’s house doing homework and TK took Posie to her swim class, so the whiteboard is free.”
“The whiteboard?” Liv asks the question for me and Marie.
“Yes, my beautiful friends,” Brynn says. “The whiteboard solves all.”
Poppy grabs her purse off the chair and tosses it on her shoulder before leveling us all with a stare that I’m sure makes her children wither. “Snap snap! What are you waiting for? We have to get to my house and stake our claim before the rest of my motley crew tries to take it over.”
I stand up and start following her, doing whatever it takes to avoid being yelled at and making a pregnant lady angry.
And I do it while silencing the buzzing in my purse by sending a call straight to voicemail . . . again.
Twenty
Once, when I was in college, Liv and I took a trip to New York City. It was amazing. We ate, we drank overpriced cocktails, we wore our skankiest dresses, and one day, while we were taking a stroll through Central Park, a squirrel chased me until I threw it the almonds I was snacking on.
That was a weird day.
But it still doesn’t compare to today.
I turn my key in the lock and push open my front door, still trying to figure out what in the actual hell just happened.
When Brynn said whiteboard, I figured it was a euphemism for something. Spoiler alert! It wasn’t. It was a literal whiteboard. A giant one that damn near took up an entire wall in Poppy’s house, but was still just a dry-erase board nonetheless. I guess when Brynn had problems with Maxwell, the Lady Mustangs staged an intervention and used the whiteboard to help her see the light. And for some reason, she thought the same could be done for me and Quinton.
There was just one major problem.
Quinton and I are not Maxwell and Brynn. The main difference being their relationship grew out of friendship and mutual respect. Quinton and I just started being able to stand in the same room as the other person and I’m pretty sure I assaulted him.
No whiteboard could help with that.
But we did break out into a very intense tic-tac-toe contest. Poppy’s son, Ace, won. Which is total crap if you ask me because he’s young and probably knows the algorithm. Thankfully for me, though, I didn’t drink today so I had enough self-awareness not to say that thought out loud.
Oh.
And I also ignored two more texts from Quinton without reading.
Say it with me everybody: plausible deniability. But now that I’m home and don’t have the Lady Mustangs, Liv, and Marie hovering over my shoulder, I’m going to have to be a grown-up and read them.
Sucks.
I hang my purse on the hook by the door and drop my keys in the bowl my dad painted the one time I was able to convince him to go to a pottery painting place with me. It’s objectively terrible—an artist he was not—but it is easily one of my favorite pieces in my entire condo.
I toe off my shoes and leave them scattered across the rug protecting the hardwood floors from the door to my kitchen. I’m usually pretty good about putting everything in its place, but I’m lacking the motivation to walk the extra fifteen feet to put them in my closet right now. A feeling I’m sure most people would share after the day—and night—I’ve had.
The plastic gas station bag holding the plethora of sugar coma–inducing treats bounces off my thigh with every step I take. I might have a Ben & Jerry’s-sized bruise tomorrow and I’m honestly okay with that. It will be the most on-brand injury in the history of injuries.
In the kitchen, I empty the bag on the white countertops I had installed right after I moved in. The pint of peanut butter cup ice cream rolls off the counter and hits the ground with a plop. The lid pops off and white droplets of melted ice cream splatter across the hardwood floor that I’m still not sure how to properly take care of. I pick up the ice cream, not bothering to put it in the freezer, and wipe up the splatter art with a paper towel. I’ll find a wood cleaner later, right now I’m in a race against room temperature to eat my ice cream.
I leave the rest of the candy sprawled out on the counter. There are a lot of perks to living alone, but the main one is that nobody will steal your snacks.
I grab a spoon out of my drawer and push it closed with my butt as I make my way straight toward my couch. If anything can ease the pain of the last twenty-four hours, it’s reality TV and ice cream . . . and I plan on indulging in both.
But before my butt can meet the comfort it’s yearning for and I can stuff my feelings down with the calorie-dense, only momentarily effective ice cream, there’s a knock at the door.
“Fuck.” I hiss, not wanting to talk about Quinton or Mrs. Rafter or anything actually, with
