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“I’m still figuring that out. I would love for you to write about it as it happens, when I announce the deal, I mean, get it up as soon as possible.

And then we can do the whole profile, but I want to make it so that this is something he can’t take away from me.

I want it out there in the light and I want everyone to know.

” The words catch in her throat. She chokes on them.

“Too many things are hidden and secret in our lives. I want to change that. I want something better for my kids, especially the girls.”

I reach over to place my hand on top of hers. I get it. I want opportunities for my daughter that I never had. I want her to have all the things, even if I don’t know exactly what that means.

“You’re brave,” I say.

“I’ve never been more scared in my life. But I have some leverage. There’s some things Gray would rather I not know. Rather no one knows. I don’t want this to get nasty. But I have ammunition.”

She shivers and it isn’t because of the cool breeze coming in from the desert.

“Want to go inside and watch a movie? Finish off a bottle of wine?” she says, deliberately changing the subject.

“Yes please,” I say, and mean it. I want nothing more than to grab the insanely fuzzy blanket from the foot of the bed and pop open the expensive wine that welcomed me on the counter and check if How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is on the hotel TV.

It seems like the kind of movie that’s always on a hotel TV.

I want to snuggle with my old friend the way we did in college.

When was the last time I just sat on a couch and watched a movie with a girlfriend?

It’s been years. I don’t think I’ve done it since I went away with my sister right before Nora was born for what we called our sistermoon.

And that’s my sister, not even a friend.

I talk to my mom friends mostly on text because even though we all started out having our babies in the city, now we’ve scattered to various suburbs and even new states.

I’ve made some new friends since our move, but it feels like we’re still auditioning each other.

Plus, it takes dozens of texts to get a single mom date on the calendar and even then childcare falls through for half of them.

But I yawn. I’m exhausted and drunk and also hungover at the same time and I’m already yearning for my first cup of coffee in the morning as I dread the headache that awaits me.

Bex sees it in my face. She’s always been able to read me. I miss that.

“I forgot about the time difference again,” she says quietly. “You must be exhausted.”

“Yeah. But maybe I could rally.”

“No. No. There’s time for us to catch up. You’re here for the week. So much time. Get some sleep and let’s meet up in the morning before the main event. I’ll order breakfast to my room. I’m just down the hall.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. I need a good night’s sleep too.” She stands. “Ohhhhhhh, but I do need to use your bathroom before I head out. I’ve got insane mom bladder, especially after those martinis.”

“Trust me. I know. I leak when I laugh too hard, and I have to cross my legs when I sneeze. It must be worse after six.”

“You have no idea. My vagina is the size of the Grand Canyon.”

It’s such a Bex thing to say. Something that I would never imagine coming out of Rebecca’s mouth or being in one of her captions. I wonder how long I’ll get to have this version of her…if it’s only for tonight.

“I’ll wait to stand up until you get out of the bathroom ’cause I’m gonna have to go real quick too,” I say.

I lean back on the rocking chair as she opens the sliding door and steps inside.

The haze has cleared and the stars are something else out here.

I think I see Orion and maybe Lupus, the wolf.

Peter is very into astronomy. It’s one of his many hobbies.

I don’t have hobbies anymore and I don’t even know what they would be if I had the time.

But Peter loves mastering a subject just enough to sound smarter than most people in the room.

He put one of those constellation finder apps on my phone.

I reach for it so I can tell him what I’ve seen when we talk in the morning.

It’s not until I pick up the phone and put it in front of my face to unlock the screen that I realize I have the wrong device, that I’m staring at a message that definitely is not meant for me.

Even without fully unlocking the phone I can see the start of it.

You won’t get away with this you fucking bitch

It’s from someone saved in the phone as G .

Gray?

It buzzes again. The device practically leaps out of my hands and clatters onto the concrete floor of the balcony.

I look behind me before getting down on my hands and knees to pick it up.

I gather both phones, mine and Bex’s, and walk into the living room, hoping her device goes back to sleep before she comes out of the bathroom.

I place it on the coffee table face down anyway, to make it seem like I just tossed it there casually when I brought it in. I pour a glass of wine for her, hoping to stall her from picking it up so that the screen will definitely go dark.

“Hey.” I hand her the wine when she walks out.

“I had a change of heart. One more nightcap.” Her eyes are slightly glassy from booze and probably exhaustion.

She takes it from me politely, but I know she’s not gonna sit down.

Suddenly I pull her into one more fierce hug, and it isn’t just to stall.

I want to hug her, to remember what it felt like to touch her. She hugs me back just as hard.

“Let’s get wild tomorrow night,” she says, laughing as she pulls away and walks over to the coffee table. “Let’s have three drinks instead of two and maybe smoke a cigarette.” She slides her phone into the pocket of her sweats without glancing at it.

“Bex…” I start, wanting a few more minutes. “Why…”

Her shiny expression crumbles. Our eyes lock.

We’re going to do this . Then she holds up a hand the way I do to shush my children, but it doesn’t feel condescending.

“I know what you want to ask and I owe you so much. So many explanations. So many apologies and I want to tell you everything. Tomorrow. I promise. Tomorrow night. We’ll really talk.

But I need you to know that I am sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. What happened…You didn’t deserve it.”

As she opens the door she turns around and shoots me the Crest Whitestrip smile I now know so well from her Instagram. It’s so different from her cautious smile in college, the one where she kept her lips closed most of the time to hide her bad teeth.

“We have all the time in the world.”

But we don’t. We don’t have any time at all.