The Dirty Book Club(74)

Destiny sniffled. “I was working my shift at the front desk and he just showed up, super wasted. So I got a key for a vacant room and snuck him in so he wouldn’t make a scene, but of course, he thought I was bringing him here so we could do it, and when I said, ‘I broke up with you, so why would we do it?’ he called me a tease and pushed me on the bed, so I pushed him onto the floor and then his eyes closed and he didn’t get up, so . . .”

Addie stretched out on the couch and yawned. “When did you break up with him?”

“Last night.”

“Why?”

“Sex.”

“It wasn’t good?”

“No,” Destiny said, padding off to the bathroom. “It wasn’t . . . anything. That was the problem.”

“Chest is impotent?”

“No.” Destiny blew her nose. “It’s me.”

“You?”

“I know it’s lame but”—she returned to the bed—“I’m not ready, and Chest was.”

“Does your mom know?”

“Why would I tell her?”

“Because she thinks you’re a slut.”

“I know.” Destiny smiled wryly.

“Why do you want your mom to think you’re a slut?” M.J. asked, deciding in that moment that she’d rather give rise to a cancerous mole than a teenaged daughter.

“It makes her mad, and I like when she gets mad.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because I’m over her whole ‘let’s whistle a happy tune and pretend everything is perfect’ bullshit. Because it’s not perfect. It’s pathetic. I’m a bitch; Dad’s an asshole; she’s literally allergic to her job, and sometimes I wish she’d just get off the friggin’ cross and act like it.”

“Is this how you talk when I’m not around?” Jules asked from the open doorway, holding a key card and her composure with equal amounts of grace. “Meet me at the bar.”

“No,” Destiny said. “I’m going back to work.”

“Not you,” Jules hissed. “Them. We’re staying right here.”

She closed the door with a reverberating slam that seemed to chase M.J. and Addie down the hall and straight into the elevator.



* * *



THE LOBBY WAS their only option since the rest of the resort had been commandeered by the Goddard wedding. Though it lacked the intimacy of the Oyster Bar and the classic dark wooded elegance of the steak house, there were couches and salted nuts and enough alcohol to quiet M.J.’s nerves and flood her blood with an indisputable reason to ditch the car and take a Lyft home.

“I think my Percocets could use a scotch after that, don’t you?” Addie said, ordering a round. Then: “Look who it is . . .” Her unsteady gaze led to a woman sitting next to the piano, peering above a copy of West Coast Living magazine, foot shaking restlessly inside a neon-green Nike Air Zoom.

“Britt?”

Addie limply whipped a cashew at her and laughed, as if they had just ended a pub crawl, not broken up a book club that spanned two generations.

“Stop!” Britt set down the magazine and heel-toed toward them in a huff. “I’m trying to be discreet.”

“Then you should have worn different shoes,” Addie said with a self-amused snort.

“My Spouse Spotter app is saying that Paul is here,” Britt said, ignoring the dig but not the waitress. “Double chardonnay, please.”

“I’m sorry, miss, do you mean two glasses?”

“I mean, hurry.”

The pianist claimed his bench and began his set with the creeping notes of Beethoven’s Für Elise.

“So what are you ladies doing here?” Britt asked. “Have you been”—she removed her tennis visor and revived her flattened bangs—“hanging out?”

“Not at all,” M.J. downplayed. “Destiny needed Addie, and Addie needed a ride, so—”

“You drove?”

Addie rolled her eyes so hard she lost her balance and timbered into M.J.’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t exactly call it driving.”

“Is she okay?” Britt mouthed to M.J.

“Probably not.”

Britt smiled a deep dimple, and just like that, any tension M.J. felt between them was gone.

And then it was back.

This time in the form of a petite blond in a cream-colored suit, a voluminous blowout, and a huge bone to pick with Addie.

“I cannot believe what you did.” Jules sneered.

“She was trying to help,” M.J. said.

“Oh, I know exactly what she was trying to do.”

“You don’t,” M.J. said to Jules’s flared nostrils. “She was genuinely worried, and you were at the wedding and—”

“S’okay,” Addie slurred, and then tried to stand.

Before M.J. could stop her, Jules helped her up with a friendly yank. Then she pulled Addie into her arms and said, “Thank you,” into her ponytail.

“Thank you?” Britt asked, just as surprised. “What did she do?”

“She texted me and told me Destiny was in trouble, that’s what she did.”

Jules gripped Addie’s shoulders and grinned.