CLAIRE DRAINED HER wineglass for the second time that night, then set it down on the rough wooden table a little too hard.
“Relax,” Iris said, sitting across from her, stirring the orange in her vodka soda.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Claire asked, tipping some more Syrah into her glass. She knew she’d regret it—red wine always gave her a headache—but Ruby was spending the night over at Josh’s apartment for the first time in two years, and she’d told Iris she wanted to go out, clear her head, get away from Josh and his relentless I’m a great guy! smile and sparkling hazel eyes. So here she was, half drunk at Stella’s Tavern, Bright Falls’s only bar, while the neon jukebox in the corner piped out horrible country music and she tried not to hyperventilate.
“I don’t think the alcohol’s doing the trick,” Iris said. She turned her head and surveyed the crowd, which consisted mostly of guys playing pool and a bunch of college students home for the summer.
“No, I don’t think it is.”
“You want to go somewhere else?” Iris squeezed her hand. “We could just go back to your place and watch a movie.”
Claire shook her head. She felt jittery, like that time she and Josh had tried pot during their senior year in high school and her heart raced at a thousand beats per minute for the next two hours. She had to get some energy out, and sitting on a couch drinking and eating leftover pizza wasn’t going to cut it.
“I just need a distraction,” she said.
Iris’s eyebrows popped up. “What kind of distraction?” Her voice was teasing, and Claire knew exactly what direction her friend was headed. Iris was always reading one romance novel or another, and was famous for constantly trying to cultivate happily ever afters for her friends, even if just for one night. “Like . . .” Iris rolled her hand over and over, prodding Claire to go on.
Claire rolled her eyes but smiled. “Okay, yes, fine. That kind of distraction.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Iris clapped her hands once, then rubbed her palms like some wicked villain. “Yes! It’s been forever since we got you laid.”
Claire shushed her and leaned forward. “Keep it down, will you?”
“Keeping it down isn’t going to land you in the sack with someone.”
“Oh my god, will you—”
“Hey, Bright Falls!” Iris called, cupping her hands around her mouth as she stood up. Heads swiveled toward her, mouths already smiling like they did anytime Iris Kelly spoke up. “Who wants a chance with this fine-looking lady next to me! She’s in desperate need of a good fu—”
“Iris, oh my god.” Claire tugged on her best friend’s gauzy tank top, half hoping she ripped the hem in the process. Iris plunked down into her chair while Claire’s face burned like the center of the sun. Everyone stared, and more than a few lifted a brow in her direction. Matthew Tilden, who used to make extremely inappropriate comments about Claire’s ass back in middle school, turned around on his barstool and tipped his beer toward her, while Hannah Li, a kindergarten teacher, for god’s sake, smiled so prettily before lowering her long lashes to her cheek, Claire’s stomach flipped.
“What the hell, Ris?” Claire asked.
“I thought you wanted to meet someone?” Iris said, her smile dropping away as she leaned across the table, her fiery red hair falling into her face. Iris did everything at one thousand percent, while Claire simmered at around ten.
“I did. I do. It’s just . . .” Claire sighed. She wasn’t great at this. Dating. Romance. Sex. She’d never had a one-night stand, never had a fuck buddy. She’d had a kid at nineteen; she didn’t have time for fuck buddies. But lately, she’d been thinking about trying to date again. Thinking. She hadn’t acted on anything. She hadn’t had the time. Between running the bookstore and parenting a preteen, she collapsed into bed every night around ten, as soon as Ruby was asleep.
“How long has it been?” Iris asked.
Claire’s mouth opened, then snapped shut quickly. It had been a while. No, longer than a while.
“Uh-huh,” Iris said. “A long-ass time. Who was it?”
“What?”
“The last person you slept with. Hell, the last person you went on a date with.”
Claire took another swig of wine, knowing the answer would scandalize Iris’s romantic heart. “Nathan.”
Iris nearly choked on her liquor. “Nathan? My assistant Nathan? The Nathan I set you up with because you’re both ridiculously detail oriented and thought maybe you could bond over your filing system or something like that, whom you took to dinner at a lobster roll food truck in Astoria and never called again, making it incredibly awkward for me at the shop the next week? That Nathan?”
Claire sat back in her chair, slipping off her dark purple–framed glasses and polishing them on her shirt while she said nothing.
“That was six months ago, Claire. Six. I had no idea it was this bad.”
The timing had been off with Nathan, that was all. He was a perfectly nice man—gorgeous, that’s for sure, and Claire had definitely been attracted to him—but Ruby had just had her first major blowup with her best friend that week, catapulting Claire into uselessly trying to figure out how to help her daughter navigate the particular kind of hell that was fifth-grade friendships. And she’d been finishing up a small remodel in the bookstore, which had been her biggest project since taking over the business from her mom. It was important, a lot at stake.
“And I know you didn’t sleep with him,” Iris said.
Claire lifted a brow. “Is he a kiss-and-tell kind of guy?”
“No. He’s classy as shit. However, I distinctly remember you being wound just as tight as you always are the next day.”
Claire presented her middle finger to her friend.
Iris took a sip of her cocktail and then leaned forward. “Just please—please—tell me that the last time you had sex was not with the father of your adorable, precious, star-of-my-heart daughter. Tell me that wasn’t the last time.”
Claire froze, a confession on the tip of her tongue. But then she realized it wasn’t even true. She waved a casual hand. “Oh, come on, Iris, you know it wasn’t.”
“I know no such thing.”
“I tell you everything.” Or almost everything. She and Josh split up nine years ago. Her heart pinched, just thinking of it. All the yelling, the crying. Ruby and her tiny two-year-old eyes so wide and scared while her too-young mom and dad ripped each other apart.
“Well, I must be having a memory block,” Iris said, glancing around the crowded bar. “Where the hell is Astrid? She usually writes these things down.”
“What, my sex life?”
“All of our sex lives, including her own.” Iris lifted her hand, pretending to write in the air and putting on a posh accent that sounded nothing like Astrid. “Monday, May 3, 9:23 p.m. I let Spencer penetrate me tonight, which was quite thrilling. Next time, I might go a little wild and venture into reverse cowgirl. He keeps asking for anal, but I—”
“Oh my god, stop,” Claire said, laughing. “She does not write that in her planner.”
“She writes something postcoital. I guarantee it.”
“She likes order. You’re the one who personalized her planner.”
“Yes, and I put a little box at the bottom of every day that says Intercourse: yes, no, or maybe, just for her.”
Claire cracked up. “You did not.”
Iris winked and took a sip of her drink. They’d all been best friends since fifth grade, when both Claire and Iris moved to Bright Falls the same summer. The only time they’d been apart were the four years Astrid and Iris went off to college while Claire dealt with a little surprise in the form of her daughter. Her friends came back to Bright Falls after graduation, cementing their trio back together, and Claire had never been so relieved. Astrid and Iris tried their best to be there for her during Ruby’s first couple of years, but she refused to let them put their lives on hold. Plus, she’d had Josh.
Until she didn’t.
Still, she’d made it, having a baby at nineteen and falling completely in love with her daughter, surviving her breakup with Josh. But she’d never been happier to see her friends settle back into Bright Falls. Astrid, armed with a shiny business administration degree from Berkeley, took over Lindy Westbrook’s very lucrative interior design firm when the older woman retired, while Iris worked as an accountant until she had enough saved to open up Paper Wishes, her paper shop next to Claire’s family’s bookstore on Linden Street in downtown. Iris was hugely talented—she sold her own line of personalized planners and had over fifty thousand Instagram followers—while Astrid had almost single-handedly revitalized half the houses in Bright Falls.
Claire pretty much ran River Wild Books now, the store her grandmother had started back in the 1960s, and was trying her best to bring it into this century. Her mom let her do what she wanted, but what she wanted—putting in a café, hanging local art on the walls, getting some e-commerce going—took money, and lots of it. So far, she’d managed to brighten up the shelves and walls, setting up a little reading area with soft leather couches in the middle of the store, but that was it. Still, it was a start.
Claire slugged back another swallow of wine, which drained the glass. “Nicole Berry.”
She said the name quietly, its sound still causing a slight twist somewhere in the middle of her chest. She’d not only had sex with Nicole, she’d dated her too. For five whole weeks before Claire reached the point where she wanted to introduce her to Ruby, and then Nicole had promptly freaked out. She’d liked Nicole. A lot. Could’ve even loved her if Nicole had given them half a shot.
Iris pulled a face at her. “Nicole.”
“Yes, Nicole,” Claire said, her voice lighter than she felt. “She was hot, right?” And god she was. Silky hair, long legs she used to slide around Claire’s hips in a way that made Claire—
She clenched her thighs together at the memory. God, it had been too long.
“Um, sure, yes, gorgeous,” Iris said gently. She knew how much Nicole leaving her had stung. “And that was two years ago. Two, Claire. You haven’t”—she shook her boobs a little, and there was plenty there to shake—“in two whole years?”
“Oh please, no one has time for sex, Ris” was her brilliant retort.
Iris gave her an oh you poor thing kind of look. “That is absolutely not true, and you know it. I have sex all the time.”
“You have a boyfriend.”
“And you have a vibrator.”
She lifted her empty glass in salute. “That I damn well do.”
“And it’s very, very tired.”
Claire laughed but couldn’t deny it. She’d had to charge her vibrator’s battery at least twice in the past month.
Iris clinked their glasses together, and Claire emptied her lungs for the first time all evening. Ever since Josh had shown up back in town two months ago—swearing that he was staying this time, that he was starting a construction business instead of just picking up odd jobs with his friend Holden’s building company he could easily walk away from, that he really wanted to be there for Ruby—she’d been on edge.
And with Astrid spinning like a top out of control lately, her wedding to Spencer looming like a dark cloud on the horizon . . . well, let’s just say Claire was due a few drinks.
“How’s it going?” Iris asked, reading her mind like always. “With Josh?”
Claire shrugged. “Ruby adores him.”
“And we’ll leave it at that?”
Claire blew out a long breath. Josh was the father of her child, and she’d always love him. But goddammit, if he got Ruby’s hopes up one more time just to vanish on her again, she’d kill him. Like, literally kill him. Slow and painful. She’d had enough unreliable people in her life, and she didn’t want Ruby growing up with the same ghosts.
She checked her phone. Other than the time and a picture of her daughter’s smiling face, the screen was blank. No texts from Josh. Her vision swam just enough that she knew one more drink would turn her sloppy, and she couldn’t do that in front of Josh. He’d never use it against her—at least she didn’t think—but she was trying to set a good parenting example here.
“I should go,” she said.
“What about your distraction?”
She waved a hand. “It can wait.”
“Astrid isn’t even here yet.”
Claire rubbed her temples, everything in her life coalescing into a headache behind her eyes. “I want to check on Ruby over at Josh’s before she goes to bed.”
“Check on Josh, you mean.”
“Can you blame me?”
Iris shook her head. “And I never will. You know that, right?”
Claire pulled some cash from her wallet. “I do.”
“I love your sex-deprived ass.”
Claire laughed. “You better.”
“Forever and ever.” She reached out and stilled Claire’s hand on her wallet. “So let’s take this slow.”
“Take what slow?”
“Dating. Finding someone you like.”
“Okay,” Claire said carefully. “What do you—”
“One number. That’s it. Just get someone’s phone number tonight and go from there.”
Claire’s shoulders immediately curled around her neck. Everyone she’d ever been with, she’d met organically. Josh was her high school boyfriend. Nicole was a local author who wrote vegan cookbooks and had come into the bookstore to sign her latest on plant-based desserts. Claire handled the signing, they started talking, and that was that. Iris had set up Claire with Nathan. She’d never picked up someone in a bar, but having watched Iris do it at least a dozen times since high school, she’d always wondered what it was like, the thrill and excitement.
Claire forced herself to relax. This was why she’d come out tonight, after all. She wanted . . . something. Needed someone—even it was just the possibility of someone—to make sure she didn’t fall back into bad habits with Josh. She wasn’t in love with him; she knew that. But her body got stupid around him. Always had.
That didn’t change the fact that the idea of walking up to some stranger and essentially saying How you doing? made her feel like she needed to puke.
“Starting tomorrow,” Iris said, sensing her impending freak-out, “we’re locked into a solid two weeks of wedding tomfoolery.”
“Tomfoolery?”
Iris ignored her. “I’m talking brunches, lace doilies, manicures, and a sexless bachelorette party.”
Claire laughed, remembering how Astrid had strictly forbidden anything phallic at her last hurrah. No penis straws, no penis cakes, and absolutely no dildos. Iris was hugely disappointed.
“Not to mention,” Iris said, lowering her voice and leaning forward, “we’ve got to have the big t-a-l-k with Astrid, for which she’ll probably hate us for the rest of her life.”
Claire closed her eyes and breathed in slowly through her nose. Ever since Astrid had shocked even Iris into speechlessness a few months ago by announcing that she was marrying Spencer Hale, whom she’d barely dated for ninety days and with whom her best friends had only minimally interacted, Claire and Iris had been functioning on a constant low level of panic. He was handsome and rich and the only dentist in town and couldn’t seem to get through a meal without putting some ridiculous demand on Astrid.
Hand me the salt, would you, babe?
Ask the waiter to bring another beer, would you, babe?
You didn’t want the rest of your fries, did you, babe?
And what’s more, Astrid complied every single time, even though the fucking salt was right in front of his golden-boy face.
Iris and Claire kept saying they were going to talk to her about it, make a plan, but weeks turned into months, and they still hadn’t figured out how to explain to Astrid that the supposed love of her life was a total dickwad. Because he was the worst kind of dickwad, surreptitious and smiling. Half the time, Claire couldn’t put her finger on what irked her so much about the man, only that she felt like she was hanging out with a poisonous snake anytime she was in the same room with him, which wasn’t exactly a reason to tell Astrid to run for the hills. Besides, Astrid liked facts, numbers, and neither Claire nor Iris had any to give, just bad vibes they couldn’t shake.
“Your point?” Claire asked.
“My point is that the next couple weeks are going to suck, and there’s no way you’re going to find someone in Vivian’s Tearoom or at a spa at Blue Lily Vineyard.”
Claire balked. “Hey, some sexy stuff can happen at spas.”
“Not at the kind Astrid frequents.”
“You never know.”
Iris leaned forward. “So you’re telling me that you’d get busy with your masseuse if they were into it? Like”—she flicked her eyes down to Claire’s purportedly neglected nether regions and waggled her eyebrows—“busy.”
“Oh, for sure.”
“Bullshit.”
Claire lifted her hands and let them drop. “Okay, fine, so I’d like to go on a date first. Sue me.”
“I know. You’re not wired for casual, and that’s okay. Hence, a phone number. I know you hate Tinder and Her and Salad Match.”
“I don’t hate them, I just—wait, Salad Match?”
“Find your salad soul mate. It’s a thing.”
“Oh my god.”
“Exactly.”
Claire rubbed her eyes under her glasses. The dating world was terrifying. Not that she’d ventured into it very much. She’d dipped a toe in with Nicole, and that was enough. “I’m raising a kid here, Ris.”
Iris’s eyes went soft, and she reached out and squeezed Claire’s hand. “I know. You’ve worked hard. You’ve sacrificed a lot, and you’ve got a great kid to show for it.”
Claire’s throat went a little thick at the emotion in her friend’s voice. “Ris—”
“Which is all the more reason to enjoy a nice non-self-induced orgasm.”
Claire smiled, and Iris got that gleam in her eyes, the same kind she got whenever she was working on a planner design or bought a brand-new set of Tombow markers. That never say die kind of sparkle.
“Okay.” Claire sat up straight, rolled her shoulders back and her neck from side to side like she was getting ready for a boxing match. “Okay, I can do this.”
“Hell yeah, you can.”
“I’m hot, right?”
“Hot and a badass bitch.”
She shook out her hands. “Just one number. How hard could it be?”
“Easy. Everyone in the whole damn room wants your number.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would.” Iris reached across the table and slapped Claire on the back, shouting, “Go get ’em, tiger,” over the din, and then sat back to sip on her drink with an excited grin on her face.
Claire turned in her chair and faced the lacquered bar, watching its activity for a few seconds. She looked over her shoulder at Iris. “One number.”
“One number. That’s it. A valid number. As in someone you actually find hot or interesting or whatever floats your mom boat these days.”
Claire stuck out her tongue at her friend.
“Save that for better uses, my love,” Iris said, winking.
Claire laughed. “Fine, fine.” She turned back around with a deep breath. Stella’s was busy tonight. It usually was on the weekends. Or any other night, for that matter. Bright Falls was charming, and she loved it, but with only a handful of shops, most of which closed at six p.m. on the dot, and just a few restaurants, the one bar in town was bound to be packed on a regular basis. She scanned the tables around the bar top, hoping to spot Hannah Li again. She’d definitely feel more comfortable approaching a woman or someone nonbinary. Since coming out as bi when she was a junior in high school, she’d always felt more drawn to other queer people or femmes. Josh being one of the few, albeit huge, exceptions. Still, she knew every queer woman in this town, and half of them were already married or partnered—including Iris, who’d figured out she was bi her sophomore year in college and would always and forever be more sister than potential partner—so the chances of someone single actually hanging out in Stella’s tonight was slim.
And Hannah was nowhere in sight, not at her original table, not at the bar.
Claire started to turn back to Iris, ready to give up, when her eyes snagged on a pair of tight black jeans.
The woman was white and had just reached the bar, a rolling suitcase by her side. Her hair was dark and curly, volume for miles. She had her back to the room, and Claire couldn’t take her eyes off the way she leaned over the bar to give her drink order to Tom, the bartender that night, pressing up onto the toes of her black boots. Tattoos vined down her bare arms. God, Claire loved a good tattooed arm.
And those jeans. Those jeans were nice.
“Attagirl,” Iris said from behind her.
Claire turned. “You don’t even know who I’m looking at.”
“Please.” Iris tipped her glass toward the tattooed woman. “You have a type, and that person is it, all broody and mysterious.”
Claire opened her mouth to protest, but when Iris was right, she was right. She smoothed her hands over her own jeans, made sure the collar of her blouse was lying flat, and adjusted her glasses. Then she stood up and started toward the bar.
