“Mm,” Sabrina said noncommittally. “So elegant.” She reached out to adjust Lara’s crooked tiara. “How many drinks have you had, babe?”
In response, Lara pushed her glasses up her nose and then spun in a circle, the white tutu Kate had bought her for the occasional whirling fanning out around her. Impressively, she managed not to spill a drop of the champagne, despite the definite tipsy wobble she had going on. “I’m getting married in two weeks. Married!”
She shouted the last word, and Kate laughed at her friend’s uncharacteristic giddiness. “Guess those drinks took effect,” she said as Lara twirled away to join her best friend and former roommate, Gabby, on the couch.
Gabby had moved to London with her boyfriend a year earlier but had flown back to New York for the wedding festivities. The most recent of said festivities being one (or twelve) rounds of Moscow Mules from testicle-shaped cups. Kate had had two. Lara and Gabby? A few more.
“What’s this?” Sabrina asked, gesturing at a basket on the counter.
“Hangover kit for tomorrow,” Kate said, reaching out and pulling the basket closer. She pointed. “Excedrin, obviously. Bottled water. Gatorade. Saltines. Eye mask. Note card telling her that an egg sandwich on a bagel and coffee will be arriving at ten thirty a.m.”
“You already told her that.”
Kate gave Sabrina a look, then glanced pointedly at the couch where Lara and Gabby were singing a very off-key rendition of a Christina Aguilera song Kate hadn’t heard in at least a decade.
“Right,” Sabrina said. “A reminder would be good.”
“Hey, Lara,” Kate called over to the living room. “If you’re going to dance, move that champagne glass away from the edge of the table, hon!”
Lara did so, lifting the glass carefully with two hands the way one would hold a chalice, and then setting it in the very center of the coffee table before flinging her hands over her head in a ta-da, I did it! gesture.
“Good job,” Kate said as Lara went back to doing some very jerky dance moves.
Sabrina perused the open wine bottles on the counter before settling on a Sauvignon Blanc, pouring herself a glass. She held the bottle up toward Kate, who extended her glass for a top-off. She wasn’t entirely sure it was the same white she’d been drinking before, but she was just tipsy enough not to care.
“How do we have so many open bottles for four people?” Sabrina mused.
At Lara’s request, the bachelorette party had been kept exceedingly small. As an FBI agent, Lara was careful about who she cut loose around. Kate was honored to be among the select few and also relieved that she didn’t have to deal with small talk. Normally, she could host a party, whether it be her own or her best friends’, like nobody’s business.
Lately, though? Lately, her brain had no room for talk of the weather, or the latest movies, or oh-em-gee, what is Justin Bieber up to now?
For the first time in a long time—maybe ever?—Kate wasn’t up to dealing with other people’s business. She was drowning in her own.
“It’s good to see her happy,” Sabrina said with an indulgent smile at the wildly dancing Lara.
“It really is,” Kate said. “Ian, too. He’s been like a little kid at the office lately. The other day he brought in candy for everyone. Candy. Not like fancy chocolates, but some bag of assorted crap. He went around to every office saying, ‘One for you; one for you,’ like a little kid.”
Sabrina laughed. “God, I’d have killed to see that. Was he drunk?”
“Yeah, on love,” Kate muttered.
She expected a caustic remark from Sabrina, who’d known Ian since they were kids and who was a pretty die-hard cynic. And then she remembered . . . no longer. Sabrina had joined Lara and Ian in the happily-in-love club, and though she hid it better than Ian, Sabrina was dopily drunk in love with her new husband. And Matt with her.
And just like that, Kate realized that she, the one who’d not so long ago had her kids and pet names picked out and had once doodled Kate Dawson on her notepad in a moment of weakness, had become the group’s resident cynic. No, not cynic, she corrected. She was just . . . smarter now. A little less blindly trusting that it would all end happily ever after.
“It’s good to see you happy, too,” Sabrina said. “Or at least easing back that way after your dad.”
Kate’s head snapped up, and she found her friend watching her. “I still miss him,” Kate said quietly, the pads of her fingers on the base of the wineglass, spinning it round and round on the counter without taking a sip.
“Of course you do,” Sabrina said matter-of-factly. “You always will. But right now is the worst, and I’m glad you have someone by your side to help you through it.”
Kate’s eyes narrowed, and Sabrina’s narrowed right back.
“What, you think I didn’t know? That we all didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
Sabrina shook her head. “You’re a terrible liar. Even worse at playing dumb. You and Kennedy are doing it.”
“Shh!” Kate glanced over to where Gabby was trying to teach Lara some sort of sashaying dance that looked like it would be complicated sober, much less way past sober.
“Oh please,” Sabrina said. “Gabby lives on another continent and couldn’t care less about our love lives, and Lara already knows.”
“How?” Kate asked, aghast.
“Well, because I ran into Kennedy this week, and he was giving off the I’m getting regular sex vibes. The exact same vibes I got the second I saw you today. Which I suspect is exactly why you’ve been avoiding us all week. Or maybe that’s just because you’ve been too busy humping?”
Screwing, Kate mentally amended with a little smile.
“Ooh,” Sabrina said, leaning in. “I’m liking that smile. That means you’re not just getting regular sex but good sex.”
“Yes to the latter; no to the former,” Kate said. “It’s good. Really good. But not regular.”
“Oh my God, it’s true!” Sabrina’s eyes were wide. “After all of this time, you and Kennedy finally hooked up.”
“Wait! You said you already knew!”
“I mean, I had my suspicions from that glow you’re rocking, but now I know for sure. Spill the details. When? Where? How many times?”
“Twice,” Kate said, holding up two fingers. “Once last Sunday, and it was just spontaneous, and casual, and . . .” Mind-blowing.
“And the other time?”
“Wednesday,” Kate admitted. “We were both working late, and he asked if I wanted to go to dinner.”
“And then you did it after dinner?”
“We never got there,” Kate said, trying not to blush as she remembered the very dirty things she’d done to Kennedy in his office.
“Nice,” Sabrina said.
Had Kate not been looking at Sabrina, she might have missed the flicker of concern that went along with her approving tone.
“What was that?” Kate said, pointing at Sabrina’s face. “That look.”
Sabrina had always been direct, and tonight was no different. “I’m worried about you.”
“Why? Aren’t there studies showing that sex is life-affirming or some such?” Kate said, picking a piece of cheddar off the cheese board and nibbling the corner, even though she wasn’t really hungry. “Besides, you’re the one who told me to scratch my itch.”
“Yes. But doing it more than once takes you solidly out of fling territory. Take it from me: more than once means something.”
“It means that Kennedy has a really great body.”
“Kate,” Sabrina said softly. “I’m glad you’re having good sex. Thrilled. But are you positive it’s not more than that? You were in love with him once. You’ve said so.”
“Yes. Once. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him now.”
Her friend gave her a skeptical look.
“I still care about him,” Kate admitted. “But I don’t want a relationship. Neither does he.”
“You
sure about that?”
“Yes. I—Wait, what do you know?”
“Nothing. Really. It’s just that after the night on the boat with you two—”
Kate stilled. “You know about that?” She hadn’t told a soul. Not even her girlfriends.
“Kennedy told the guys, and Matt mentioned that something had happened with you two.”
“Wait, what?” Kate blinked. “Why would Kennedy mention that to them?”
“I don’t think it was a salacious gossip fest or anything,” Sabrina rushed to reassure her. “I mean, Matt didn’t get, like, details on your bra size.”
Kate winced.
“Sorry. I just mean it wasn’t a locker-room type of conversation. I think Kennedy told them because it mattered. To him. I think you matter to him.”
You’re mine now.
The memory of that night rushed back at Kate, bittersweet and tormenting.
She didn’t know if she was ready for that tender, possessive version of Kennedy—if she’d ever been. She’d caught a glimpse of him that day at the park, and it had both exhilarated and terrified her. For now, she wanted the casual Kennedy. The version from this past week that had been sexy and flirtatious, even a little bit charming.
“We’re on the same page now.” I think. “We’ve gotten the sexual tension out of our systems, and now we can go back to just being colleagues and friends.”
“Friends.” Sabrina didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.
“Yes. Like you and Kennedy are friends. Like he and Lara are friends.”
“Okay, but there’s a huge difference. Two, actually,” Sabrina said. “We didn’t use to fantasize about him putting a ring on our finger. And we haven’t seen him naked.”
“Well, I no longer want his ring on my finger, and the naked thing is just . . .” Kate tried for cool but couldn’t hide her blush.
Sabrina noticed. “That good, huh? I mean, the guy works out. A lot.”
“I don’t kiss and tell.”
Sabrina picked up a wine bottle. “Have some more of this, and maybe you’ll get around to the good stuff. Better yet, have one of those Testicle Mules that Gabby and Lara downed like water.”
“Yuck, we are not calling them that.”
“Says the woman who brought anal beads to the party,” Sabrina said, nodding at the grapes.
“Hey, you made her a tiara out of condom wrappers.”
“Protection is important. Mostly I’m hoping we get to play pin-the-dick on Ian.” She pointed at the cardboard cutout Kate had ordered online. Ian’s face had been superimposed on a male model, naked except for a fig leaf.
“Yeah, but did you see they sent along, like, twenty different types of dicks?” Kate said. “I think the idea is for Lara to pick the one that most resembles Ian. I don’t really want to know that. Do you?”
“Yikes, no.” Sabrina winced. “I guess it’s a good thing our girl seems past the point of being safely blindfolded.”
Proving Sabrina’s point, Lara had started playing Cyndi Lauper on the sound system. Women everywhere knew the opening notes of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” usually went hand in hand with a headache the next morning. Especially if there was singing involved.
Which there was.
“How mad at us do you think Ian’s going to be for letting his fiancée dance on the couch?” Kate asked.
The front door of Lara and Ian’s apartment started to open, and Sabrina straightened. “I’d say we’re about to find out.”
Kate turned toward the front door just as Lara shouted Ian’s name and vaulted off the back of the couch and straight into his arms. He stumbled back a step or two as Lara slammed into him and was steadied by Matt and . . . yes, Kennedy.
Kate purposely didn’t look at him as she took in a tipsily affectionate Lara and Ian, whose singing along with Cyndi was a dead giveaway of his state.
“What in God’s name did you give him?” Sabrina asked as Ian twirled Lara around their living room. Gabby clapped to the music from the couch, not even close to on beat.
“He mostly stuck to his usual Negronis, heavy emphasis on the plural,” Matt said, helping himself to a mushroom as he wrapped an arm around Sabrina’s waist.
Kate glanced at Kennedy, keeping her face carefully in the friend zone. “You do realize you guys are crashing a bachelorette party, right?”
“We did our best but decided the whole bachelor party was a bust when Ian started telling the stripper all about the wedding. In great detail. Then asked if she was cold.”
“Oh dear,” Kate said with a laugh. “Well, at least we know he’ll be loyal.”
“Lara, too,” Sabrina chimed in. “I suggested a male stripper, and she asked if we could have Ian do it.”
“And there’s my nightmare fodder for weeks,” Matt said with a wince.
“So what do we do with them now?” Kennedy asked as Ian and Lara moved on from Cyndi to ABBA. “Oh Jesus. Here comes the striptease.”
“Come on, man,” Matt called as Ian began twirling his dress shirt above his head. “At least let it be Lara who takes her clothes off.”
“Is she wearing condoms on her head?” Kennedy asked.
“Nice, right?” Sabrina said proudly.
Kate took one last sip of wine, then decided it was time to call it. “All right,” she said, clapping her hands and walking into the living room. “Lara, sweetheart, pull your skirt down. Matt was just kidding. Matt, Sabrina, you think you can get our girl Gabby here into the guest room?”
“I’m a guest!” Gabby said with a happy, slightly oblivious smile.
“You sure are,” Sabrina said, wrapping an arm around the other woman and moving her in the direction of the second bedroom. “You want to brush your teeth?”
“Why are you spinning in circles?” Gabby asked.
“Matt, can you get her some water from the fridge?” Sabrina called over her shoulder.
Kate took care of Lara, reaching up and gently untangling her hair from the condom crown. “You ready for bed, bride?”
“Can Ian come?”
“Of course, my dear,” Ian answered for Kate, extending his hand to Lara, who took it with a flourish.
Kate stepped aside, watching with a smile as Ian led his fiancée toward the bedroom, realizing they were long past caring that there were other people in their apartment.
“Don’t forget my hangover kit on the counter!” Kate called after them.
“They’ll be okay. He’s a little tipsy, but I think he’s more happy than he is drunk,” Kennedy said quietly.
“Drunk on love,” Kate said with a smile. “Lara, too.”
Matt had joined Sabrina in the bedroom, and Kate heard them arguing with Gabby over the merits of sleeping in her stilettos.
She and Kennedy were alone. He looked down at her. “You have fun?”
She smiled and moved back to the counter to clean up. “I did. You?”
“Sure. Yeah. It was nice to hang out, just the three of us, instead of a big blowout bachelor thing.”
“Yeah, I think Matt learned that lesson for all of you last year,” Kate said, remembering how a particularly rowdy bachelor party, with an ill-placed Wall Street Journal photographer, was what placed Matt and Sabrina on their course toward coupledom, but not without plenty of bumps along the way.
“You don’t have to clean up,” Kennedy said as she started taking glasses toward the sink.
“It’s okay. I don’t want them to have to worry about it tomorrow when they wake up.”
“They won’t. I asked my cleaning guy to come by in the morning to take care of it.”
Kate turned to stare at him, letting herself see him for the first time that night. She swallowed, because he looked . . . good. His hair was just a little more disheveled than usual. His dress shirt was white and should have been boring, but rolled up to his elbows to reveal his watch and strong forearms, it was anything but.
She tilted her head. “You hired a cleaner? Why?”
> He shrugged. “Because I know you. Knew you’d insist on cleaning up for them.”
“Because it’s what I do,” she said before she could stop herself.
He took a step closer. “I know. You take care of everyone. Everything. Who takes care of you?”
Her breath caught at the intense look in his eyes, but before she could process it, he stepped back, his expression reverting to unreadable.
“Cannon,” Kennedy called over his shoulder. “We’re heading out.”
“Wait, what?” Kate asked. She and Kennedy weren’t a we.
Were they?
Matt stuck his head out of the second bedroom door. “Sounds good. We’ll be right behind you once we convince Gabby that now is not the time to text her eighth-grade boyfriend telling him what a mistake he made.”
“Good luck with that,” Kennedy said, setting a hand on Kate’s back and nudging her gently toward the door.
“I know he let a good one get away,” they heard Sabrina say cajolingly from the bedroom. “But trust me, that message will be so much clearer if you take a selfie tomorrow instead of sending that one you just took. Better yet, wait until the day after tomorrow.”
Kate grabbed her purse and followed Kennedy into the hallway, but she turned toward him in the elevator lobby. “I’m not going home with you, you know.”
“Okay.”
“Just because we—Oh.” She broke off when she realized he hadn’t argued with her. She tried not to feel rejected. Or disappointed. “Okay.”
The elevator door opened with a ding, and Kate stepped toward it.
Kennedy grabbed her hand and pulled her back. His head dipped down to hers, taking her mouth in a sweet, surprising kiss.
She stiffened, well aware that Matt and Sabrina could walk into the hallway at any moment. Not that it mattered. There apparently were no secrets in this group.
“I missed you,” he whispered against her mouth.
Kate melted into him, kissing him back. I missed you, too.
And she had. She’d seen him just yesterday, but it had been at work, and now that she no longer worked for him directly, she didn’t have an excuse to pop into his office. Their contact had been limited to polite good mornings and stealing steamy looks across the office when nobody was looking. In other words, everything she’d once daydreamed about and yet . . . better.
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