Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)(31)

Olivia chuckled. “It’s fine, Brendon. If I didn’t feel comfortable answering, I’d tell you precisely where you could stick your question.” Her smile went impish. “Politely, of course.”

Brendon, Annie, and Darcy burst out laughing, Olivia’s frankness clearly taking them by surprise. Margot grinned, well aware of how clever Olivia could be. It was nice to see her opening up, shaking off the stiffness Margot wasn’t used to, relaxing and settling into her skin the way Margot had remembered. She’d missed Olivia’s easy smiles and raunchy jokes and—she’d missed Olivia.

Missed her, full stop.

“Good to know,” Brendon said. “So . . . ?”

Olivia clasped her hands together atop the table. “I just got divorced last year. And while I’m not heartbroken—I’m over it—I was married for almost ten years, so I’ve been enjoying having some time to myself. Getting my career off the ground has been my number one priority.”

Brendon nodded along. “All good points.”

Margot narrowed her eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“But if the right person were to come along, would you be open to dating?” Brendon asked.

“I mean . . . I guess?” Olivia shrugged. “If it was the right person at the right time, I wouldn’t say no to, um . . .” She rolled her lips together as if searching for the right word. “Seeing what could happen?”

Brendon grinned. “What would you say your type is if, on the off chance this person were to come along, so, you know, I could send them your way?”

Margot rolled her eyes and shoved her chair away from the table. “Bathroom,” she explained when everyone looked up at her.

It wasn’t so much that she needed to pee as she wasn’t in the mood to hear Olivia describe her perfect person. Some clone of Brad, only better, without the douchebag personality. Not Margot. Margot was good for a week, for a rebound fling, nothing more.

She shut herself in the single-stall bathroom in the back of the bakery and locked the door. Jesus, did she sound bitter. She closed her eyes. Eleven years later, and she should’ve been over this. She was over this—at least, last week she was—and then Olivia had tumbled back into her life and there were all these feelings she could’ve sworn she’d worked through rising to the surface.

Maybe Margot hadn’t worked through her feelings about what happened in high school as much as she’d buried them, pushing them away via repression and self-recrimination. Not the healthiest of coping methods, admittedly, but Margot was nothing if not a work in progress.

So, maybe she wasn’t as over it as she’d claimed to be. Thinking about how she and Olivia had ended, grown apart, whatever put a bitter lump in her throat and an ache in her chest, and Margot didn’t know what to do with this, this feeling.

Only that she needed to do something because her friends weren’t stupid and neither was Olivia and sooner rather than later someone was going to pick up on the fact that Margot was less fine than she was letting on.

The timing was shit, that was for sure. She couldn’t exactly hole up in her room with a wedding to plan, a wedding to attend, and Olivia living right down the hall. Margot would laugh if she weren’t so entirely screwed by circumstance.

She set her glasses beside the sink and splashed cold water on her face, avoiding her eyes, her liner actually even on each side for once. An odd twist. Her life went belly-side up, and she managed a perfect cat eye. Go figure.

Having stalled for long enough, she slipped out the bathroom, footsteps slowing to a crawl as Brendon’s voice carried down the hall.

“. . . Margot like in high school?”

Margot tiptoed closer, wanting to hear what Olivia said when she wasn’t around. When Olivia didn’t know Margot could hear her. Maybe it wasn’t the most virtuous thing to do, listening in, but hey, work in progress.

“What she was like in high school?” Olivia laughed. “Gosh, Margot was . . . pretty quiet, actually.”

“Margot?” Annie sounded incredulous. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

Everyone laughed, and Margot rolled her eyes, creeping a little closer and stopping just at the inside of the hall, tucking herself behind a ginormous rubber fig.

“She wasn’t a wallflower or anything like that. Margot was just always really comfortable in her own skin. She had this quiet confidence I always admired, and I guess she never felt like she needed to be the loudest voice in the room in order to be taken seriously,” Olivia explained.

Margot’s face warmed.

“And she was always intensely loyal. You should ask her where she got the scar on the backs of her knuckles from.” Olivia laughed and Margot ducked her chin, smiling at the floor.

Brendon chuckled. “Sounds like Margot.”

“She was—she was my best friend,” Olivia said softly.

Margot swallowed hard and pressed the heel of her hand into her sternum as if she could massage away the ache inside.

“I’m sure you’re happy that your paths crossed,” Brendon said.

“I am,” Olivia agreed. “I count my lucky stars, that’s for sure.”

Margot dropped her face into her hands. Damn.

“Margot?”

Margot jumped, clapping a hand over her chest. Beneath her palm, her heart thundered. “Darcy. Fuck. You scared me.”