"Chasing Harry Winston" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weisberger Lauren)

it’d be nauseating if it weren’t so goddamn cute

Three Months Later

“Emmy!” Leigh called from Adriana’s old bedroom, which with the addition of her fluffy down comforter, a cluster of silver picture frames, and her favorite reading chair she had easily made her own. “The car’s downstairs. We’re going to be late!”

She heard her friend stomping back and forth between rooms, inevitably packing every item that wasn’t nailed down. “Have you seen my Nano? Or my phone charger? I can’t fucking find anything!”

Leigh zipped up her neatly packed carry-on roller and carefully placed the matching satchel on top of it. She ran through a mental checklist and, after satisfying herself that she hadn’t forgotten anything, pulled her belongings into the hallway. She walked into Emmy’s room-previously the de Souzas’ guest room-went directly to her dresser, and plucked both Nano and phone charger from the giant glass fishbowl Emmy used as a catchall. “Here. Throw these in your purse and let’s go. We are not missing this flight!”

“Okay, okay,” Emmy mumbled, yanking a brush through her hair. “This is an obscene hour to be awake, never mind actually moving. I’m doing the best I can.”

It took another fifteen minutes to get Emmy out the door and ten more for the car to circle around the block, pick them up, and head to JFK. They were exactly thirty minutes behind Leigh’s preferred schedule-just because the airlines suggested you should be there two hours beforehand didn’t mean that two and a half wasn’t better-and normally she’d be a wreck, but today she was too excited to let anything bother her. It had been almost three months since they’d last seen Adriana, sent her off with a blowout going-away dinner at the Waverly Inn with twenty-five of her nearest and dearest friends, and they were finally headed west for a visit.

Once Adriana moved, Emmy hadn’t even bothered giving thirty days’ notice on her apartment; she just paid two months’ rent and moved out immediately. Leigh expected it would take some time to sell her place-after all, it had taken her over a year to find it-but the broker called two days after the first viewing to say they had an offer. She ended up selling it to the very first couple who saw the place (newly engaged, naturally, and giddy with excitement) at twelve percent more than she’d purchased it for a year earlier. Even less the broker’s commission, Leigh earned enough on her initial investment to finance a few months’ worth of doing absolutely, positively nothing-or at least nothing constructive-before she began school in September.

“So, do you think we’ll go to the Ivy?” Emmy asked, cradling her Starbucks thermos between her hands. “I mean, I know it’s hideously clichéd and trite and all that, but it is our evaluation brunch. I sort of think we have to go for it.”

Despite the predawn hour, Emmy couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“I don’t know,” Leigh said, hoping she wouldn’t encourage her.

“Can you believe it’s been a year since that first dinner at the Waverly Inn?” Emmy asked.

“I know. Crazy, isn’t it? It feels like yesterday.”

“Yesterday? You’re fucking nuts. It feels more like a decade ago. This must have been the slowest year of my life. It’s as though time just stood still. Like I’m living in this complete warped time freeze of-”

“Em, sweetheart, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I need you to stop talking. Just until we get there,” Leigh said.

Emmy held up a hand and nodded. “Enough said. No offense taken. I have no idea why I get like this. It’s like exhaustion and this compulsive need to talk go hand in hand. The more tired I am, the chattier-”

“Please.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Leigh’s phone rang. She got that flippy feeling in her stomach when she saw the caller ID. “Hi!” she breathed into the phone. “What are you doing up so early?”

“What would you say if I told you I set the alarm just so I could wish you a safe trip?” Jesse asked, sounding tired but happy.

“I’d say you were a giant liar and that you should tell me the real story.”

He laughed and Leigh felt herself start to grin. Just the sound of his laugh was enough to make her feel giddy with excitement. “Well, in that case, you probably already know I’ve been up all night. Literally, just sitting here, waiting to call you.”

“The up all night I’ll believe, but try again on the waiting.” She turned to see Emmy glaring at her while flapping her hands open and closed to imitate talking. Leigh smiled and blew her a silent kiss.

“All right, you got me. Up until three writing, then from three to six playing Grand Theft Auto, then coffee, then calling. More believable?” he asked.

“Much.”

With any other man, she would’ve been horrified to discover a video-game addiction. It had even once been on her list of nonnegotiable deal-breakers (right there alongside excessive back hair and/or sweating, a penchant for bathroom humor, and any type of religious fundamentalism), but despite her ardent attempts at disapproval (mocking, eye-rolling, relentless teasing), she secretly found it adorable. And truth be told, she rather liked it when he let her choose the gang-bangers’ outfits at the beginning of each game. Was this love? She wasn’t ready to say that yet, but damn, it had to be close.

“Are you in the car?” he asked.

Leigh sighed, picturing him stretched out under the covers, getting ready to sleep for a few hours before hitting up Estia’s for his late-morning rounds. “Yeah. We’re actually almost there, so I should go. I miss you.”

“I miss you,” Emmy whispered. “Oh, Jesse, baby, I miss you so much. How can I live without seeing you for an entire four days? Ohmigod, like two star-crossed lovers.” Leigh reached over to poke her friend, but Emmy managed to flatten herself against the car door.

“What’s she saying?” Jesse asked.

“Nothing at all.” Leigh laughed. “I’ll call you when we land, okay? Get some sleep.” She resisted making a kissing sound into the phone for Emmy’s benefit.

“My god, it’d be nauseating if it weren’t so goddamn cute,” Emmy said with a long, dramatic sigh.

It was nauseating, Leigh knew this, but she was too happy to care. Jesse had called incessantly for two straight months after “the incident,” as they both now called it; he e-mailed, left messages with her assistant, texted her phone three, four, fives times a day. She screened him each and every time, not wanting to confuse her already screwed-up life any more. Just because it felt complicated didn’t mean it was; regardless of how many times he called or apologized or tried to explain himself, the fact remained that Jesse was married. Period. She’d made a big enough mistake already just by sleeping with him; she didn’t need to make everything worse by getting further involved.

Which worked, all said and done, until she decided to leave Brook Harris. She was still going into the office every day, but it was only to help transition her authors to their new editors. Henry had wisely taken Jesse on himself and, in that way that only an über-experienced editor can, had coaxed Jesse into cleaning up the writing without mortally offending him. When she read the galley, Leigh could only shake her head at its improvement: Jesse surely had another huge hit on his hands. Leigh had even managed to keep him mostly out of mind until the day he e-mailed her in all caps. It had no subject line and read, “MEET ME AT THE ASTOR PLACE STARBUCKS TONIGHT @ 7 P.M. I JUST WANT TEN MINUTES. AFTER THAT, I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE IF YOU WISH. PLEASE COME. J.”

Leigh did what any sane female faced with such an e-mail would do: deleted it to resist the temptation of replying, cleared her trash to resist the temptation of recalling it, and then called tech support to restore all her recently deleted e-mails. She briefly toyed with the idea of forwarding it to Adriana and Emmy for input and analysis, but then ultimately decided it would be a total waste of time; obviously, she would go.

By the time she arrived at Starbucks that night-a Monday, no less!-she was a wreck. Second-guessing herself like crazy, reminding herself what an absolute moron she was for even entertaining the idea of talking to Jesse, ex-lover and ex-author extraordinaire. What was the point? So she liked him-so what? There, she’d admitted it to herself. What did she want for that, some sort of prize? It only made it stupider and more masochistic to subject herself to such a meeting, one that would surely bring even more disappointment in an already less-than-stellar month. The fact that Jesse finally arrived, ten minutes late, flanked by an Asian girl so young she could be his daughter did not improve Leigh’s outlook.

“Leigh,” he said with a huge smile, holding his hand out to her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Mmm,” she replied, not standing up to greet either of them. Not that there was any need to stand-the smiling girl was pulling up a chair, and soon she and Jesse were both seated across from Leigh.

“Tuti, I’d like you to meet Leigh. Leigh, this is Tuti…my wife.”

Leigh’s eyes shot first to Jesse, who appeared not the least bit uncomfortable, and then back to the girl, who upon further inspection Leigh decided was probably even younger than she’d first thought, although not as pretty. Tuti had beautiful thick black hair, but it was cut in an awkward shape for her full face. “Oh dear god,” Leigh said aloud before she could stop herself.

Tuti giggled sweetly, and Leigh saw that she had a significant overbite. Had this happened under any other circumstances, Leigh thought she would have found this girl adorable. Charming, even. But tonight? Like this? It was more than she could bear.

“Tuti, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve, uh-” She was automatically going to say “heard a lot about you,” but it was too fraught with meaning. Instead, she said, “I hate to run, but I was just stopping by.”

With this announcement, Tuti’s face fell. “So soon?” she asked with a frown. “Okay, then I am going to get something to drink and leave you two alone. Leigh, Jesse? Something?”

Jesse patted her shoulder and shook his head no, and Tuti scampered off toward the counter.

“What were you thinking, bringing her here?” Leigh heard herself ask, as though her brain and mouth were no longer in contact. She popped three Nicorettes into her mouth and waited for the calm to wash over her. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t care what you were thinking. I just want to go.” She began to gather her things, but Jesse clamped his hand down over her arm.

“She’s twenty-three and from Indonesia. Island of Bali, village of Ubud. I ended up there about a year after Disenchantment was published, went with a group of super-rich Europeans for a month-long party at someone’s daddy’s house. That was all well and good until one of them overdosed, and then the next day al Qaeda blew up that nightclub in Bali.”

Leigh nodded. She remembered that.

“Needless to say, the party moved on, but something kept me there. I left Kuta, the city of the bombing, and headed inland, toward the mountains and the rice-paddy villages, where I’d read all of the artists and craftsmen and writers of Bali live. And sure enough, Ubud was just overflowing with them. The place was incredible! Every day was a festival of some sort, a huge, brightly colored celebration of the seasons or a holiday or a life event. And the people! My god, they were gorgeous. So welcoming, so open. Tuti’s father and I became friends. He’s only four years older than me, and he has her…” At this, Jesse shook his head. “He’s a talented woodworker, more of an artisan really. We met one day when I went to his shop, and he invited me home for dinner. Beautiful family. To make a long story much, much shorter, I owe Tuti’s father a great deal. He got me back on track with my life-in a lot of ways he saved it, I think-so I didn’t really have a second thought when he asked me to marry Tuti.”

Leigh wasn’t sure where this story was headed, but she was fascinated-not to mention it now made perfect sense why the tabloids hadn’t gotten hold of the story. Damned if she was going to show him that, though; instead, she took a sip of her coffee, tried to appear aloof, and said, “She’s very sweet, Jesse. I can see why you married her.” What she didn’t say was Why are you telling me this?

Jesse laughed. “Leigh, I was being quite literal when I said I married Tuti because her father is very dear to me, and he asked me to. She was a child-still is-and I’m unspeakably fond of her, but we’ve never had a romantic relationship, and certainly never will.”

“Ah, yes, well, that makes perfect sense.” She didn’t want to go the sarcastic route, but this whole situation was so confusing.

“After nine-eleven, the U.S. placed Indonesia on its short list of terrorist countries. So even though the island of Bali is ninety-eight percent Hindu-as opposed to the rest of the country, which is the same percentage Muslim-Tuti was denied a visa to so much as visit America. Her parents worked their entire lives to send her to the States for an education-as they did with her older brother-but the new political situation made it impossible. That’s where I came in.”

“You married her so she could get a visa?” Leigh asked, shocked. Didn’t that only happen in the movies?

“I did.”

Leigh could only shake her head in disbelief.

“Do you really find it that appalling?” Jesse asked. “This is why I didn’t want to get into it before now.”

“I don’t think appalling is the word I’d use, but it’s definitely…weird.” Leigh peered at him, examined his face. “Didn’t you ever want to get married one day to someone you actually love? Or was that not even a consideration?”

“I know this probably sounds strange to you, but to be perfectly honest, no, that was not a consideration. I’d recently come off this massively successful first book, and I was all caught up in the traveling and partying and women; marriage was the last thing on my mind. What was I really sacrificing by marrying Tuti in name only? She lives with three roommates in a walk-up on the Lower East Side. Goes to school at night, has a new boyfriend who seems like a nice kid. I take her out for lunch twice a month, and she loves bringing her laundry to my apartment because my cleaning lady does it for her. It’s like having a niece, or a little sister. And it’s never had any kind of negative impact on my life…until now.”

Even now, three months later, Leigh could remember every word of what Jesse said next. How he’d been intrigued with Leigh from the moment they met in Henry’s office; how much he grew to adore and respect her during the working Hamptons trips they’d shared; how he hadn’t thought himself capable of caring about someone so much. He told her that he knew it was all happening so fast, but that he didn’t want to waste any more of his life playing games or screwing around. She could take all the time she needed, especially in light of what had happened with Russell (Henry had told him everything), but he was committed to her and her only. Just tell him now if she felt the same way; if there was even the smallest chance she did, he would wait for her. Was there the smallest chance? She smiled now just remembering all of it.

The flight to Los Angeles was uneventful. As promised, Adriana was waiting for them at the baggage claim, chattering a mile a minute, filled with excitement and ideas about how the girls would spend their weekend.

“First and foremost, we shop,” Adriana announced as she clicked open the doors to her brand-new, candy apple red BMW M3 convertible.

“Sweet car!” Emmy breathed, running her hand across its trunk.

Adriana smiled happily. “Isn’t she hot? How can you live in California and not drive a convertible? It’s a sacrilege. She’s my ‘independence gift’ from my parents.”

“You’re joking,” Leigh said, delighted that the three of them could fall right back into their familiar patterns.

“Not at all,” Adriana sang. “They wanted to ‘encourage’ my decision to support myself-I’m paying entirely for my own apartment, by the way-so here she is. I mean, I could’ve rejected it on principle, but that just seems silly, doesn’t it?”

The girls piled into the convertible and proceeded to work their way through lunch at the Ivy, store-hopping on Robertson so Emmy could pick up a pair of baby Uggs for her nephew, and a driving tour of Venice Beach, Adriana’s new neighborhood. Her studio was bright and modern, a clean, uncluttered space just two blocks to both the ocean and all the stores and restaurants on Main Street. Leigh couldn’t remember feeling this happy, this content, for a long time, and as the girls sipped wine and dressed for dinner, the thought occurred to her that the anxiety-related heart palpitations and clammy hands and fingernails-in-the-palm digging were things of the past. The Nicorette was gone. She even slept most nights. It was almost impossible to imagine, but if she had to select a single word to describe her current emotional state, she might have even chosen relaxed.

Singing Shakira the entire car ride to West Hollywood, the girls were prepped and ready for a big night out. It only helped when Adriana pulled up to the valet at Koi and was given a rock star-worthy greeting, followed by a worshipful double cheek kiss and a “fucking gorgeous, Adriana!” by the otherwise obnoxious maître d’. They were immediately ushered past teeming heaps of sushi-seekers and sake-swiggers and deposited at one of the restaurant’s best tables, a prime swatch of real estate that offered 360-degree views of the dining area and bar, and glimpses of the cocktail garden cum paparazzi frenzy out front. A round of lychee martinis simply materialized, and within minutes the friends were in prime form.

“So, what’s the plan?” Leigh asked Adriana, who had been approached and greeted by no fewer than three people in the last ten minutes.

“You’re like a local celebrity,” Emmy said to Adriana, shaking her head. “Not that I’m remotely surprised, but still…”

Adriana flashed her perfect teeth and performed her sexy hair-flick move to what Leigh would swear were audible groans from nearby tables. “Querida, please, I’m blushing!”

“Yeah, right,” Emmy said. “Our shy, fragile flower, just waiting to bloom.”

“Okay, so maybe not so shy,” Adriana concurred. “And as for our plan, well, we aren’t committed to anything. We could meet up with Toby later, or”-Adriana smiled devilishly again, clearly indicating which choice would be her preference-“we could head to Vine and meet up with some of those guys from Endeavor. One of them has a sick house and always throws great pool parties…”

“What’s this I hear? A new love interest, perhaps? What about Toby?” Leigh asked, popping a piece of salmon sashimi in her mouth.

“What about Toby?” Adriana said, the up-to-no-good smile back again. “He’s lovely, as always. But that’s not to say there aren’t many more lovelies out there…”

“Does he know?” Emmy asked.

Adriana nodded. “He’s wonderful, sweet, even fun sometimes. I told him I’d love to keep seeing him on a nonexclusive basis if he was okay with that, and he was. Can you really expect a girl in a brand-new city with so many delicious treats to choose only one? It’s inhumane!”

“So, as far as our pact goes…,” Emmy said, letting her words trail off.

“Yes, that is why we’re out here, isn’t it? It’s been exactly one year since the agreement, and we’re supposed to evaluate this weekend. Declare a winner,” Leigh said.

Adriana waved her hand dismissively. “The pact? Please. I’m so over it.”

Emmy laughed. “So are you admitting defeat?”

“Absolutely, one hundred percent, not for a single second,” Adriana said, sipping her martini and delicately licking her lips. “Admittedly, there’s no ring”-she wagged her left hand, fingers spread-“but there could have been. And still can be, from Toby or anyone else. I might be thirty in a sea of gorgeous twentysomethings, but the more time I spend here, the more obvious it becomes: They’re amateurs. They’re little girls. They don’t know the first thing about seducing or keeping a man. We’re women…in every sense of the word.”

The waiter appeared at their table and began to uncork a bottle of Dom Pérignon. “We didn’t order that,” Leigh said, looking to her friends for confirmation.

“It’s from the gentlemen sitting at the end of the bar,” he replied, the festive pop of the cork punctuating his words.

All three girls swiveled immediately to look.

“They’re cute!” Leigh said in the way committed girls do the world over. They’re totally fine…for you. I won’t be partaking because I’m madly in love with someone so much better…

“Way too preppy,” Adriana said automatically, her eagle eyes taking in the four men.

“We don’t have to sleep with them, but we do have to invite them over for a drink,” Leigh said in her most reasonable voice.

“Please, we don’t owe them anything but a thank-you smile and a little wave,” Adriana said, performing both with a flourish as she spoke.

Neither girl noticed that Emmy’s face was beet red, that she was fidgeting with her hands and refusing to look back at the bar.

“You okay?” Leigh asked, wondering if Emmy was having a Duncan-related regret, or worse, if they were his friends. They looked like East Coast prep-school guys, not at all like native Californians, and as Leigh watched Emmy grow more and more uncomfortable, she was sure she had hit on something. “Are those friends of Duncan’s?” she asked.

Emmy shook her head no. “I’m so humiliated. My god, I never thought I’d see him again. What happens abroad stays abroad, right? Or what doesn’t happen…”

“What is she talking about?” Adriana asked Leigh.

Leigh shrugged; damned if she knew.

“Is one of them a card-carrying member of the Tour de Whore? Or perhaps more than one?” Adriana asked with a wicked smile.

“God, I wish,” Emmy sighed. “One of them-the guy in the striped collared shirt-is Paul. I can’t believe he recognizes me. This is so embarrassing. What am I supposed to do?”

“Who’s Paul?” Leigh asked, scanning her brain to recall the names of Emmy’s conquests from the past year. “The Israeli?”

“Croc Dundee?” Adriana asked.

“The guy on the beach in Bonaire?”

“Someone else entirely we haven’t heard of and are therefore going to torture you for?”

“No!” Emmy hissed, looking very distressed. “I met Paul at the Costes in Paris, the first trip I took after the tour began. He’s the one I threw myself at, who completely rejected me. Had to go to his ex-girlfriend’s party. Any of this ringing a bell?”

Both girls nodded. “That was a year ago,” Leah said. “I’m sure he doesn’t even remember you inviting him to your room, just the great conversation you had.”

“Uh-huh, keep telling her your lies,” Adriana said.

“It doesn’t look like you have much choice,” Leigh whispered. “He’s coming over here. Three o’clock. Two. One…”

“Emmy?” he said, sounding endearingly nervous. “I’m not sure if you remember, but we met in Paris, at the worst hotel on earth. Paul? Paul Wyckoff?”

“Hi!” Emmy said with the perfect amount of enthusiasm. “Thanks for the champagne. These are my friends Leigh and Adriana. This is Paul.”

Everyone shook hands and smiled and made a minute or two of small talk before Paul dropped two back-to-back conversational bombs. It turned out that although Paul was in LA for the week to visit his newly born niece, he’d actually moved to New York six months earlier and was living in a great apartment on the Upper East Side. As if that wasn’t enough to digest, he managed to mention how upset he’d been when Emmy never responded to the note he’d left for her, how he was sorry for just ditching her like that, but he’d been hoping to hear from her so he could make it up to her.

“Note? What note?” Emmy asked, all pretense of playing it cool totally gone.

“How easily we forget!” Paul laughed, and Emmy thought she might have to stand up and nibble on his lips then and there. “The one where I wrote this whole apology for leaving so abruptly, and I gave you all my contact information and basically begged you to get in touch. I left it with the front desk at the Costes when I checked out the next…” His voice drifted off and he smiled as he realized what had happened. “You never got that, did you?”

Emmy shook her head. “Sure didn’t,” she said cheerfully. This was, quite possibly, the best news she’d heard in an entire year.

Paul sighed. “I should’ve known better.” He turned to the girls and, addressing Leigh and Adriana, asked if he might interrupt their dinner and steal their friend for a drink outside in the garden.

“She’s all yours,” Leigh said, waving her friend off, thrilled to see Emmy so happy.

“Only for a few minutes!” Adriana called after them. “We have plans after dinner.” Adriana turned to Leigh and shook her finger admonishingly. “Don’t make it so easy for him,” she reprimanded.

When Emmy returned twenty minutes later, she was flushed with excitement.

“So, how was it?” Leigh asked. “Judging by your face right now, I’m guessing it wasn’t utterly humiliating.”

Emmy laughed. “Not for me, at least. He said he had to work up the nerve to send over the champagne tonight because he was still embarrassed that I never called him. Can you believe it?”

“Unbelievable,” Leigh said, shaking her head. “And he lives in New York now? Are you kidding me?”

Emmy grinned happily, but there was barely a chance to celebrate. A minute later, Paul came back to the girls’ table. “Hey, I hate to do this again,” he said with a sheepish smile, “but I’ve got to run.”

Emmy was so stunned that it prevented her from saying what she was thinking, namely, that Paul could take his whole Oh, I’m so sorry you never got my note act and shove it. Just minutes earlier she’d been going through a mental checklist of what she needed to do before she went home with him that very night (write down Adriana’s address so she could get home the following morning, borrow an extra Tampax or two from Leigh, double-check that she was wearing the cute camisole she thought she was), and now she was about to be left…again.

“Going to another ex’s party?” Adriana asked sweetly.

“Actually, I’m, uh…Christ, it sounds stupid.”

Bring it on, Emmy thought to herself. Between the three of us, we’ve heard every stupid excuse in the book.

Paul checked his watch before jamming his hands into his pockets. He cleared his throat. “I’m doing the night shift for my brother and sister-in-law, and it starts right about now, so…”

“The night shift?” Emmy asked.

“Yeah, it’s only their fourth night at home after leaving the hospital and they’re sort of freaked out. Tired, too. I, uh, had some extra vacation time and figured I’m pretty good at staying up late, so I volunteered to take care of the baby at night.” He shook his head. “She’s a handful.”

Leigh and Adriana shot each other a look. This guy may as well have had THE FUTURE FATHER OF EMMY’S CHILDREN tattooed across his forehead.

“Oh, how sweet!” Emmy cooed, all anger and disappointment immediately forgotten. “Does your sister-in-law pump and then leave it for you in bottles? Is the baby good? I bet she’s a little colicky if she’s up all night. My sister just had a baby, too, and he’s a little scoundrel.”

“Yeah, she’s having a rough time with the nursing-said it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done-so it’s a combination of breast milk and bottles right now. But the baby-Stella, that’s her name-is really good. She’s just so new, you know? She’s up every two hours.”

“Awww,” Emmy cooed, gazing at Paul with unabashed adoration. “She sounds adorable.”

“Yeah, so I better run.” He paused and appeared to think about something. “Hey, so no pressure whatsoever-I know you’re here with your friends and all-but it’d be great to have some company if-”

Emmy didn’t wait for him to finish. “I’d love to,” she interrupted him. “I’m practically an expert now, and I can see you’re in dire need of help.”

Paul smiled, and even Adriana thought he looked absolutely delicious. “Excellent! I’m going to grab my coat and say good-bye to my friends. Meet you by the door in a couple of minutes?”

Emmy nodded and watched as he walked back toward the bar.

“You’re not really going, are you?” Adriana asked in such a way that indicated she already knew the answer was Of course not. “He can’t expect to run into you and have you follow him around like a puppy.”

Emmy took a long pull on her martini, set it down carefully, and smiled at Adriana. “I suppose I should woof right now.”

“Emmy!” Adriana started to say, “Have I taught you nothing about-”

She held up a hand, and Leigh found herself silently cheering her on. “Stop being the rules Nazi, Adriana. Save it for your younger, more inexperienced fans. We”-she motioned around the table and smiled hugely at her best friends-“are all experts now. And we did it the old-fashioned way.”

Adriana opened her mouth to argue, but appeared to reconsider. “All right,” she said with an understanding nod. “I’ll buy that.”

“To us,” Leigh said, her glass aloft.

The girls clinked and sipped and smiled. It might be the end of the pact, but somehow, they all knew it: The good stuff was just beginning.