Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)(22)

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.”

“Brazen and bitchy?” Margot chuckled under her breath, only halfway joking.

Elle smiled. “Bold and no bullshit.”

Margot ducked her chin. “Shucks, Elle. You’re going to make me blush.”

Someone knocked on the front door.

“Come in!” Elle shouted.

Annie stepped into the living room, Brendon close behind, each carrying a small pallet containing easily four dozen succulents.

“Hey.” Annie beamed. “Can I set these down somewhere?”

As if summoned by the mere idea of dirt winding up on her carpets, Darcy appeared. “There’s a tarp under the coffee table.”

Elle snagged it and shook it out, laying it flat atop the floor so Annie and Brendon could set the plants down.

After making two more trips out to the car to retrieve yet more succulents, Brendon clapped his hands together and, with a zeal that Margot usually reserved for happy hour and BOGO shoe sales, said, “Let’s get this party started.”

*

Tongue poking out from between his lips, Brendon finished tying off a twine bow with a quiet little ha of delight. He wiped his hands on his knees and reached across the table, making a grab for Margot’s Reese’s Pieces.

She smacked his hand aside. “Excuse you.”

Brendon laughed. “You’re so weird about sharing food.”

“You try growing up with two brothers and talk to me about sharing food.” Margot popped a Reese’s Piece in her mouth. “I swear if it wasn’t glued down, they’d tried to eat it. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.” She grinned. “Every man for himself.”

Elle snickered. “There’s more in the kitchen, Brendon.”

Brendon stood and saluted Elle before disappearing around the corner.

“So, Margot,” Annie said. “How’s the roommate situation working out? You and Olivia getting along?”

Did an immense amount of—what she was pretty sure was mutual—sexual tension count as getting along?

Work seemed to keep Olivia busy. Whether that was a regular thing for her or Brendon and Annie’s last-minute wedding required overtime, Margot wasn’t sure. Either way, Olivia had been out of the apartment all day yesterday, coming home after Margot had already crawled into bed. Margot had only seen her briefly this morning. Olivia had smiled sleepily, dashing out the door with a travel mug of coffee in hand, offering a soft have a nice day over her shoulder.