“Oh. Miles has one of those,” Annie leaned back on the couch.
“Who’s Miles?”
“Mama’s friend. I think he might be her boyfriend.” Shetwisted her lips up like she’d smelled something sour.
“You don’t want Miles to be your mom’s boyfriend?” Jo asked.
Annie’s eyes widened comically. “Why wouldn’t I want him to be Mama’s boyfriend?” she whispered.
Jo laughed and tossed a throw pillow at Annie, who fell over on the couch, giggling. “You’re the one who made a weird face.”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to know he’s her boyfriend. But he was with her when I called her last night to say goodnight. He kept asking her if things could go in the dishwasher and she kept shushing him.”
“Loading a dishwasher can be complicated,” Jo said, sweeping game pieces back into the box. “My old roommates, Molly and Kyla, were pros at fitting the most things in the dishwasher.”
Annie cupped the side of her mouth and leaned closer to Jo. Where did kids learn to do shit like that? No one did that in real life. “Sometimes, Miles and Mama have sleep overs, but Miles comes over late after they think I’m asleep and he leaves really early in the morning before they think I’m awake.”
Kind of like the sleepover your dad and I had last night?
She’d thought she’d get a repeat performance tonight with Annie headed back out with Kat, but after Derek’s reaction to the guys’ teasing on the beach, she wasn’t so sure.
Focus on the kid you’re supposed to be watching, not the dad you’renotsupposed to be banging.
“And why aren’t you sleeping when you’re supposed to be?”
Annie rolled her eyes as though the answer should be obvious. “I like to read under the covers with my flashlight. That’s the best way to read ghost stories, especially the really spooky ones in the books Nico got me for Christmas.”
On the coffee table, Jo’s phone buzzed to life with an incoming video call. “Go make sure your backpack is packed for your sleepover with Kat,” she said, shooing Annie off to her room before flopping down on the couch and swiping open the call.
Immediately, her screen filled with a wobbly image of her friends gathered around a high top at The Rookery. Molly grinned at the screen. "She lives!"
A cheer rose up from their friends and a strange sort of homesickness tugged at her ribs. She wasn’t used to going more than a day without seeing at least one of her friends.
“What is on your face?” Baz asked. Sabrina, his wife, backhanded his stomach, but he only shot her an amused look, as though her halfhearted swat could actually affect the carefully-honed muscles beneath his omnipresent suit.
“Do you like It?" Jo asked, holding her hand under her chin. “Annie wanted to do my makeup.” Her smiling image in the lower corner of the screen stared back at her, bright blue eyeshadow and a wobbly purple smiley face on her cheek. She’d need to wash it off and start over before Derek got back if she didn’t want her face to resemble the pages of a child’s coloring book.
“We saw your reels on Midnight Storm’s social media,” Tessa shouted over the noise of the bar.
“How did you know they were mine?”
“You were tagged in all the captions. They’re really good! So much better than the stuff they were posting before.” Tessa blew a raspberry and flashed a tipsy thumbs down. Her friend was such a lightweight since becoming a mother.
But Jo hadn’t tagged herself in the captions, and she couldn’t imagine who was taking the time to edit the posts to add them—or why. Still, Tessa’s approval meant a lot. Before the powerhouse pastry chef moved to Aster Bay and married her father’s best friend, Tessa had run a wildly successful Instagram account showing off her culinary creations.
“You didn’t tell us you were at the Hotel Bellwether,” Molly said. “That’s where they filmedHotter Than Broadway.You have to find the fountain. Send us pictures!”
“I already promised Annie we’d find it tomorrow so she could make a wish,” Jo said.
“So it’s going well? You’re having fun?” Kyla prompted from her perch on her husband’s lap.
“Mmhmm. And I see Gavin’s home,” Jo said. Her friend’s husband raised his drink, some kind of fruity cocktail with a giant orange slice as a garnish.
“Don’t change the subject. We want to know about what’s going on with you,” Tessa said.
“What she means is, have you banged the hot single dad yet?” Hannah asked.
“Shhh.” Jo leaned back, glancing down the hall to be sure Annie was still safely out of earshot. “Annie is right in the other room.”