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I pulled up her name.

Will:Michelle I just wanted to…

I erased that.

What was I supposed to say? I’m sorry I’m such an ass? I’m sorry I can’t make you happy? I fucking love you?

There was nothing she could do with any of that.

I leaned back, looking up into the rafters of this 100-year-old structure, wondering how many people had professed their love in here over the years? Not just the umpteen weddings, but couples on late-night walks. Teenagers on hot summer days, dripping in lake water, stealing kisses in their bathing suits.

Me, right now, with no one to hear it.

I love you, Michelle Franco.

If she were here, I’d say it. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. But she wasn’t. I was alone, and it was better this way.

Will:Merry Christmas, Michelle.

I pocketed my phone.

21

Michelle

The double glass doors to the Rolling Hills resort opened in a swish of warm air and soft jazz.

“Wow!” Reese said, actually gulping.

“It’s going to be fine,” I said, though I wasn’t sure who I was reassuring.

She wasn’t nervous about the gorgeous resort, I knew. It was being here, at Eli’s hotel.

Only a week ago, we’d been a couple of glasses deep into our eggnog after Christmas dinner, both of us trying to keep from losing our shit over our respective failures with our respective divorced men.

I’d just finished telling her what had happened with Will—toning down the gory details but leaving in the part about what he’d said.

The part I was so furious about still.

Reese had waved a finger at me. “I’m going to do it,” she’d said, her overfull eggnog sloshing from the glass in her other hand onto the table.

“Do what?” I’d asked.

“Go to the hotel. Eli said it was an open offer. He thought I wouldn’t take him up on it, but you were right. Why not?”

“You should!” I said.

“And you’re going to come with me!” she’d tacked on.

“What? No.” I was way too busy. I had the girls.

But in the end, it was Mom who’d convinced me to join Reese in Vermont. She’d not-so-gently suggested I needed the break. “We’ll stay a couple days longer and look after the girls,” she said, clapping her hand like it was a done deal already. Which I guessed it was.

When I’d gone wobbly at her kindness, she’d sat down next to me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear like she used to do when I was a girl.

“Do I look that tired?”

“Yes.”