Page 6

“HEY, GUYS!” I say, my voice entirely too lively for this time of night. The car ride with Niko landed somewhere between thrilling and enraging, and it’s harder to shake than I realize. I can feel myself overcompensating: My smile is wide and toothy, the wave of my hand is enormously broad, and four pairs of skeptical eyes study me from around the open kitchen and dining room. Normally, I come with something in hand—a bottle of wine from Trader Joe’s or some pita crackers and a hunk of that truffle cheddar Deb likes—but tonight I show up with nothing but rattled nerves, my body still electric and prickling from my car ride with Mr. Dagger Eyes.

“Well, what on earth has gotten into her ?” Deb asks with a sly smile, eyeing me through her bejeweled purple glasses. Her wife, Maureen, smacks her forearm.

“What?” I ask, though I know I’ve fooled none of them. I drag a hand across the damp expanse of my neck and smooth my braid, twirling the ends nervously as I slide into the empty chair across from her. “I’m sorry I missed the game.”

Deb’s coral-pink lips twitch into a smirk as she studies me, manicured nails tapping on the rim of her can of peach-flavored seltzer. “Don’t change the subject. We saw who drove you here.”

“Got a little private tennis lesson after work, did you?” Maureen teases, shooting an amused glance at Deb, who looks like she can’t wait to get in her next comment.

“I thought you hated tennis,” Loretta says as she settles back into her chair at the table and pops a cracker into her mouth. “Has something changed?”

“Loretta, he’s your nephew ,” I say with a snort. I’m somehow both starving and too wound up to eat, and I pick around the tray for some stray grapes.

“Which is why I can tease you about him,” she says, twisting the stem of her wineglass between two fingers as she stifles a laugh.

“You three are hilarious.” I narrow my eyes at them, but my glare is bullshit and they know it, and it’s met with a titter of pleased laughter.

“Ignore them, Bex,” Ed calls from the island in the kitchen, where he seems to have made himself at home. “They turn into teenagers when they drink.” He lifts a bottle of Chardonnay out of a crystal ice bucket and raises a questioning brow. “Speaking of, can I offer you a glass?”

I nod eagerly. I’ll take anything to quell the avalanche inside me.

“Excuse me, old man.” Deb deliberately waves her can of seltzer in the air as proof of her sobriety. “May I remind you who was the first person to run to the window like a puppy and then called the rest of us over?”

Ed gives me a sheepish look as he shuffles over and hands me my glass. “Okay, fine. It’s not just them.”

I throw back a gulp before surveying my nosy, eager audience. “It’s like you’re all begging me to make some ageist crack about you all losing your minds or something. I’m not interested in Niko.”

Except that isn’t entirely true. The thought of jumping on top of Niko and ripping his clothes off for what would almost definitely be the world’s most glorious hate-fuck is, well, kind of interesting.

“No offense, Loretta,” I add hastily, pushing all fantasies aside for now.

“None taken,” she says with a shrug, but her face is still smug, like she has a front row seat to the dirty thoughts in my brain.

“He was leaving the club, and he lives here,” I insist, and I pray the nonchalance in my voice doesn’t sound forced. “He offered me a ride so I didn’t have to walk.”

“Maureen and I could have swung by and grabbed you,” Deb says. “You just have to ask.”

“I know,” I reassure her. “But I like walking.”

These four people in front of me are the closest thing I have to best friends here in Sunset Springs, and we’ve become especially tight over the last year. Still, it’s hard for me to rely on anyone but myself, even with people who feel almost like family now.

Game night inevitably turns into hours of stories and sharing; in the past we’ve dug into everything from Deb’s double mastectomy to the time in the seventies when Loretta almost had a threesome with one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live . (She still won’t tell us who.) And yet I can’t quite bring myself to share about the things that seem to take up most of my thoughts these days, my anxiety over the club’s finances being one of them.

Then again, I’d probably rather discuss that than get into my tormented hate-crush on Niko, even though it is—from most angles of analysis—completely logical.

1. He’s practically the only other person my age within a twenty-mile radius.

That is basically my only requirement for a date these days.

“He’s a fine young man,” Ed says with authority, not letting it go. “And a damn good tennis player. Every time I hit the ball around with him it’s like being in the presence of a master.”

“With damn good looks.” Loretta winks back at Ed, who looks as close to blushing as I’ve ever seen him, and I catch something happening between the two of them that seems a bit more intense than normal. They almost look like they’re flirting with each other. “Which, again, I can say, because he’s my brother’s son. I’m complimenting my own genetics.”

“Loretta!” I give her a horrified look, but she’s one white wine in and loving my reaction. “Should you be drinking on pain meds?”

“Oh, relax. I’m only on, like, a couple of ibuprofen a day,” she says, swatting in my direction, as if she can wipe the concern off my face. “Let me make you a plate. You must be starving.”

“I’m fine,” I say. She ignores me and stacks some crackers and squares of cheese onto a plate, along with a big pile of sliced vegetables, and slides it in front of me.

“Even I find him appealing, and I haven’t been with a man since Woodstock,” Deb cracks. “God, that guy was hung.”

“Deb!” I shriek, and I consider scooping up a bunch of the game tiles and tossing them at her head.

She hacks at the triple-cream cheese Ed places on the table, her lips curled into a satisfied smirk as her wife just shakes her head with a chuckle. Maureen, of all people, is used to Deb’s antics.

“The four of you are worse than the entire frat system at ASU,” I scoff, hoping they don’t notice the Niko-induced goose bumps on my arms that refuse to stand down. “I thought we were here to play a game, not gossip.”

“Honey, you know gossip is ninety-five percent of what we do during game night,” Maureen says. “And book club.”

“And you sure ran in here like you’d been lit on fire,” Loretta says.

“Yeah, well.” I clasp my hands on the table and lean back in my chair. “It’s been a shitty day.”

Deb shoots me a tender, concerned look, shifting effortlessly from nosy gossip to grandmother mode. She reaches a hand across the table and squeezes my wrist affectionately. “What’s going on?”

“It’s taken me a while to pay off some bills,” I say with a resigned sigh. “I had no idea funerals were so freaking expensive.”

Loretta shifts in her chair and gives me a knowing look. “When Terry died, I was so deep in my grief that I practically handed my credit card over to the funeral home. Those places can take advantage of you.”

“Sorry to bring up such a morbid topic,” I say, fiddling with the glass Ed’s put in front of me.

“We’re all old here. This is what we talk about,” Deb cracks, but her face is gentle, open, and waiting for me to continue.

“Okay, see? That’s morbid,” I reply.

“You know what I’m saying,” she adds. “You can talk to us.”

“Thank you,” I say, pausing to gather my thoughts. “It has to do with the courts. They’re all in dire need of repair.”

“Honey, if this is about Niko giving you a hard time when I broke my wrist—” Loretta starts.

I shake my head. “He’s not wrong. It’s something we should have done a while ago. And I definitely don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I just need to figure out a way to fund it.”

I can feel the avalanche of panic inside me subsiding, but now it’s as if my body is made of petrified wood, hardened from centuries of exhaustion.

“What about a fundraiser?” Maureen brainstorms. “Something online?”

“I considered it, but we did that when Mom got sick, and I feel strange asking people to donate more money,” I explain. So many people had gone above and beyond with their generosity back then. I don’t doubt that they’d show up for me again. But something in me—Pride? Stubbornness? Oh, who am I kidding, it’s a fifty-fifty mix of both—longs to figure this out all on my own.

“TikTok,” Deb says matter-of-factly, finger gliding across her phone screen like it’s the answer to all of life’s problems. “You only have like, what, six hundred followers? Build your platform. The last thing you want is a mid social presence.”

“Okay, first of all, I can’t believe you’re insulting my follower count,” I joke. “You know I am not on there to chase clout.”

“You leave the clout chasing to me,” she says. “Did you know my last video got over a hundred thousand likes?”

I give her an impressed face. “Also, your use of Gen Z slang is very impressive,” I say, and she brushes me off with a playful wave.

“Oh, come on. I learn everything on TikTok. Do you know what ethical nonmonogamy is?” She leans closer, obviously eager to discuss her latest discovery.

“I do,” I say with a laugh, as Maureen gives her wife a loving eye roll.

“Wait, I don’t know what that is.” Ed shoots the two of us a confused look as Loretta clucks at him.

“I’ll explain later,” she reassures him, and again I see his face light up, bright and youthful.

Maureen begins laying out the tiles, and I ponder Deb’s advice for a moment.

“I don’t know if I even have the time to make a million videos for social media right now, much less do it well,” I say finally. “It takes me, like, an entire week to learn one viral dance.”

“Well, then I’ll just have to put you on my page,” Deb says with a nonchalant shrug. “And I can teach you dances, obviously.”

“What about a gala?” Loretta exclaims. “Oh god, I’d love an excuse to get dressed up. Put on a fun outfit.”

“I’d love that, if I had the time to figure it out,” I say. “I just need something fast. Maybe I should drive over to the casino and dump all my savings on the roulette table.”

Except I can’t even drive myself to the casino. Or afford to get my car repaired, much less the courts. God, what a mess.

I drag my hands across my face in frustration, blowing out a tired sigh.

“Keep at it,” Ed says encouragingly. “You’ll come up with something.”

I give him a confident nod, masking the tornado of anxiety roaring through my body. There has to be a solution, some way to turn the future of the club around.

When I lift my head from my palms, they’re all watching me with kind, concerned faces.

“I’ll figure it out,” I assure them. It’s the kind of promise that might have satisfied friends my own age, optimistic twentysomethings that na?vely still believe things just work out, but these four know better, wizened by life’s ups and downs, challenges I can’t yet fully understand as someone fifty years younger. Even in my panicked state, I’m buoyed with gratitude for them. This group feels like a treasure I stumbled upon, and even though this wasn’t what I thought my life would look like when I graduated from college, I love my little retirement community.

I just wish I could solve this financial conundrum in front of me… and get laid by someone who isn’t on Medicare. Or Viagra.

Out of nowhere, my brain teases me with an image of Niko from earlier tonight, sweaty and out of breath. No matter how much he gets under my skin, there is something undeniably attractive about him, his energy, and the way he carries himself, like he can conquer the world just because he believes he can.

Like he could conquer me, if I let him.

I quickly shove the image aside before I let it set off hormonal explosions throughout my body.

You’ve had some good ideas today, I remind myself. But sleeping with Niko is definitely not one of them.