“You’ve been watching too much true crime again, haven’t you?” Elle sounded amused.
“It was a true-crime podcast, actually.” Margot grabbed a stemless glass from the back of the cabinet and filled it with rosé before returning to the living room.
“I thought I heard voices.” Darcy stepped out from the hall. “Brendon and Annie still aren’t here?”
Elle shook her head. “Not yet. They had to stop by the nursery, remember?”
“Excuse me?” Margot must’ve misheard her. “Did you just say nursery?”
Darcy snickered. “I’m going to finish this report. If I’m not out by the time they get here, come get me.”
“Um, hello, can we please address what you just said about Brendon and Annie stopping by a nursery?”
“A plant nursery, Mar.” Elle giggled. “Oh my God. If you could see your face.”
“Okay, color me confused. It’s game night. What do we need plants for?”
Elle gestured to the coffee table, and for the first time, Margot actually examined everything Elle had laid out, beyond the gel pens and Sharpies. A spool of twine rested beside a pair of scissors, two differently sized hole punches, and a stack of cobalt-colored card stock. Two boxes of flat-bottomed glass globes had been shoved beneath the coffee table beside a folded plastic tarp.
This didn’t look like game night. This looked like Margot was about to get suckered into her three least favorite letters—DIY.
Margot groaned. “But it’s game night.”
And she’d been looking forward to this for weeks. Letting loose with a little wine and trouncing her friends at board games. It was supposed to be the highlight of her week.
“We’ll totally have time for charades after,” Elle promised. “Annie’s swamped with work, and she asked if we could help her with the wedding favors.”
“They couldn’t, I don’t know, hand out mini bottles of booze instead?”
Elle gestured to the spread atop the coffee table. “They’re buying mini succulents so every guest can have their own little love fern.”
It was a bit of an inside joke between Brendon and Annie, a play on the love fern in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Brendon had gifted Annie with a miniature succulent, dubbing it their love fern, hard to kill.
“Cheesy, yet adorable,” Margot conceded.
Elle leaned back, resting her weight on her hands. “A little cheese never hurt anyone.” She wrinkled her nose. “Unless you’re lactose intolerant like Darcy, but that’s only if you’re being literal.”
Margot snorted. “True.”
“Come on, Mar.” Elle snagged a handful of markers and spread them out like a fan. “It’s arts and crafts! What’s not to love?”
“What’s not to love?” She set her wine on the table atop one of Darcy’s fancy marble coasters and lifted her left wrist. “I’m pretty sure I got carpal tunnel from addressing wedding invites, because I couldn’t climb for over a week.” She schooled her expression in an attempt to unequivocally express how serious this was. “I couldn’t masturbate without my elbow twinging, Elle.”
“Oh, boo-hoo.”
Margot took back every good thing she’d ever said about Elle, who was not actually a ray of sunshine but instead a heartless monster. “Excuse me, Miss I have a girlfriend who will make me come whenever I damn well please.”
“You know, you, too, could have a girlfriend who gives you orgasms whenever you want, if you’d ever actually—”
“No.” Margot held up a hand. “Thanks.”
Margot liked her life the way it was. Exactly the way it was. Uncomplicated. She had her friends, her business with Elle was solid, and if she needed to scratch an itch she could either do it herself or find someone to do it for her, no strings attached. Nothing needed to change.
“Okay. Backing off.” Elle frowned. “Do you really not want to help with the wedding favors? Because the four of us could probably get together another time if you’d rather skip it.”
Margot puffed out her cheeks, shoulders slumping. No, she didn’t want that, to be left out. “No, of course I want to help. You know me. I just have to bitch about it first. Get it out of my system, you know? I promise I will be nothing but sunshine and rainbows when Brendon and Annie get here.”
“No one expects that of you, Margot.” Elle stuck out a socked foot—they were toe socks, fuzzy and bright blue—and nudged Margot’s leg. “We like you exactly as you are.”