Mistakes Were Made(59)

Cassie [Today 1:37 PM]

I heard it was your birthday

A grin broke across Erin’s face. She dipped her chin to her chest and her thumbs flew over her phone.

Erin [1:37 PM]

It might be …

An ellipsis, like she was trying to be cute or coy or something. As though she could pull off coy after texting back the same minute.

“Who the hell are you texting?”

Erin dropped her phone. She managed to kick it—with her shin, not her foot—before it landed in the tub, and it clattered across the floor instead, chased by a wave of water. The nail tech sighed.

“Sorry!” Erin winced. “Sorry.”

He handed her the phone before reaching for a towel.

“I’d like to amend my question,” Rachel said. “Who the fuck are you texting?”

Erin’s face was probably the color of the nail polish she’d picked out. “My hairdresser texted to wish me a happy birthday.”

“I’m sorry, do you want to fuck your hairdresser?”

Erin glanced down at the nail tech, whose eyebrows were raised as he finished wiping up the water she’d splashed everywhere.

“You know women talk about worse shit here,” Rachel said, waving her hand like it didn’t matter who heard her discussing Erin’s sex life. “Out with it.”

“There’s nothing to be out with,” Erin said. “I’d just rather not you start rumors about me and Abbey at the nail salon.”

“We are excellent secret keepers, thank you,” the woman working on Rachel’s nails said. “We don’t gossip.”

Erin wondered what they’d think if she’d told Rachel the truth.

“I’m sure we are far from the only people who would deserve it,” she said. “Anyway, I do not want to fuck my hairdresser. She was being rude about covering gray hairs as I get older.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you looked like a blushing schoolgirl.”

Rachel never left anything alone in her entire life.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Rach. I mean, I did respond, ‘oh fuck you,’ but I didn’t mean it literally.”

When had Erin become so good at making up an alibi? Her phone buzzed in her hand with another text. She kept looking at Rachel, who appeared to be analyzing her face for signs of deceit.

“Let me see your phone.”

“Oh my God. No. I am not humoring you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

“You should’ve seen your face!” Rachel crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “If we weren’t getting pedicures right now, I would get that phone from you.”

Erin believed her. Rachel could be tenacious.

“I’m glad we’re getting pedicures then,” Erin said, refusing to engage. “I’m going to go back to enjoying mine now. It’d be great if, for my birthday, you could stop being annoying.”

She shoved her phone between her thigh and the armrest. Closing her eyes, she leaned back into the massage chair. Hopefully she was conveying complete relaxation.

In reality, her pulse jumped when her phone buzzed again. She cracked an eye open. Rachel was back to playing something—almost certainly Pet Rescue—on her own phone. It was probably safe.

Maintaining the straightest face possible, Erin opened her messages.

Cassie [1:38 PM]

Happy birthday. I hope you get everything you want

How did Cassie even know it was her birthday? Parker must have told her, obviously. But Erin wasn’t thinking about her daughter.

She’d been thinking of Cassie even before the other woman texted. It’d been three weeks since Erin had driven Cassie to the airport, but she still thought about her. Too often. She couldn’t take a shower without blushing. Well, blushing and wishing Cassie were there with her.

Erin didn’t know what to text back. She wanted to flirt. Wanted to say she couldn’t get everything she wanted, not with Cassie in Virginia. It was her birthday. She was allowed to daydream about fucking her daughter’s friend if she wanted to. She was allowed to pretend she didn’t do it most days with no excuse.

All she ended up texting was thank you.

Then she deleted the messages. She didn’t trust Rachel not to try to rip the phone from her hands the second they got out of the salon.





Fifteen





CASSIE


It was the first week of February and Cassie was thinking about doing something stupid.

She and Erin had texted twice since winter break: Erin’s initial text about getting sick, then Cassie wishing her a happy birthday.

And now Cassie was online, looking at 1800flowers.com, thinking about doing something stupid.

Everything was insanely expensive and roses would be too much, right? She shouldn’t be doing this. Parker said Erin was working Valentine’s Day. What if she didn’t want flowers at work? It was all too much and too expensive and too stupid.

Cassie debated for thirty minutes before sending lilies. The ones that were white with dark pink toward the inside of them. As soon as the order went through, she wanted to call the company and cancel it. Instead, she closed her laptop.

“Why don’t you come to our anti–Valentine’s Day movie night?” Parker asked.