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.”