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Unfortunately, Loren’s just standing there defiantly. “She deserved it. Mike and I have been nothing but nice to her throughout the entire divorce, and she wants to pass judgment on us? What the hell?”

She continues to stand there for several minutes before finally sitting down. I’m torn between staying out here or going inside to check on Roxie. Ultimately, I stand, but Vanessa’s words stop me.

“She’s not…wrong, you know,” she says slowly. “What Roxie said about you and Mike? I don’t think she’s wrong.”

Uh-oh…

“Excuse me? Which part exactly?” And now Loren’s on her feet again.

“Were you seriously going to ask Mike to stay at a hotel in town while we were here?”

“Not the entire time. Just…part of it.”

“And you don’t think that’s bizarre?” Vanessa asks. “What exactly do you think is going to happen if you went away without him? Don’t you trust him?”

“Of course I trust him! What a dumb thing to even ask! He screwed up that one time, but that’s ancient history!

” Loren vents. “We went to therapy and worked it all out and we’re fine!

Better than fine! We set a date last night, okay?

Would I be setting a date with a man I didn’t trust? Huh? Would I?”

Mike screwed up? When was this?

“Lo, come on. You’re getting way too defensive for anyone to buy that you’re fine,” Vanessa reasons and…I have to agree. Unfortunately, I am so not ready to jump into this particular discussion.

“What am I supposed to say when everyone’s telling me how weird and horrible I am? Should I just say thank you and laugh it off like it’s not a big deal? Should I just…just leave and move away like Olivia did?”

“Hey!” I snap. “What the actual hell?” Now I’m on my feet. “My moving away was for my career, not anything else.”

Her snort of derision warns me she’s about to unleash on me now.

“You got tired of hanging around and dealing with Matt,” she sneers. “I get that he wasn’t great to you, but he was a good friend to everyone else. Not that it mattered to you. You selfishly expected everyone to stop being friends with him just so you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.”

“Loren…” Van warns, but we’re not listening.

“You know what? I did expect my friends to have my back, and when you didn’t, yeah, I withdrew. I was tired of everyone acting like I had to be okay with being around a lying, cheating asshole. I did what was right for me!”

“It was selfish! You just…you just left and didn’t care that you were leaving everyone behind!”

Oh, good grief…

“And you didn’t care that you were forcing me to constantly be in situations that were hurting me! It was self-preservation! I would never knowingly keep putting any of you in a position where your mental health was taking a beating!”

Yikes. There’s a thread I wasn’t expecting to pull.

Shaking my head, I’m thankful for my sunglasses because I am so ready to cry. “No one can heal in the same place that made them sick,” I say, my voice raw. “So if that makes me a bad person—a rotten friend—then so be it.”

“Liv, I…”

“You’ve had Mike—the most perfect boyfriend in the world.

The rest of us aren’t always so lucky,” I say.

“Matt wasn’t only a cheater; he was a narcissistic sociopath.

While he was charming all of you, he would take little jabs at me to wear away at my self-esteem.

No one wanted to hear about that because it was inconvenient for the rest of you.

No one wanted the guy who made everything fun to go away, just the girl who was reminding them of his flaws. ”

No one says anything, but like everyone else today, I’m on a roll.

“So yeah, I moved away, and I didn’t always come home to visit.

You may not believe it, but every one of those last-minute cancelations was one hundred percent true.

I am many things, but I’m not a liar.” I wipe away a stray tear.

“But there were also times I just didn’t want to come, and I used my job as an excuse.

It wasn’t a lie because I am always working.

Always! Hell, even this vacation is a working one.

But no one gets that. If I don’t write, I don’t get paid.

If there are no books or no words, then my career is over.

Do you have any idea how stressful that is? ”

“You never mentioned…”

“I did,” I interrupt. “I have mentioned the stress I am under so often that I’m not even surprised that you stopped listening.”

In the distance, I hear a door slam, and I just assume that Roxie’s taking the dogs for a walk and didn’t want to walk past any of us to do it.

“And Roxie? Do you even realize what her marriage to Theo was like?” I ask Loren specifically.

“Did you know that he had a drug issue? That he would wipe out their bank accounts and disappear for days or sometimes weeks at a time? He worked in the medical field, and he was stealing drugs from the clinic he worked at! Roxie was killing herself to keep them from getting evicted, and he would just belittle her every time he screwed up. Their marriage didn’t end because she didn’t put in the time, Loren.

Their marriage ended because Theo’s a pill-popping scumbag. ”

Now I’m done.

I grab my sarong and my floppy hat and calmly walk away. Hopefully walking the dogs has calmed Roxie down and maybe we can all sit and talk like adults.

The last thing I want is to ambush her at the door, so I slowly make my way up to her room and figure I’ll wait for her there. But when I get there, the room’s empty. The dog beds are gone, her side of the closet is empty, and the bathroom vanity is cleared of all her stuff.

“Shit!”

Racing back down the stairs, I run to the door and whip it open, but her car’s gone too.

“What’s going on?” Vanessa asks as she comes in from the deck.

“She’s gone! Roxie left!” I go in search of my phone and can’t remember where I left it.

“Why would she leave? She had to know we were all going to make up in a little while!” Van whines. “I have my phone. I’ll call her.”

“Who’s she calling?” Loren asks when she finally comes strolling in.

“Roxie left,” I snap. “She packed up all her stuff and the dogs and she’s gone.”

“Oh.”

I don’t even have the energy to demand that she take responsibility for this, so I rush over to Vanessa to see if she’s gotten through to Roxie.

“It’s going to voicemail.” She looks at me. “And you’re sure she took everything? Like…maybe she just decided to go for a drive.”

Shaking my head, I huff out a breath. “Everything’s gone. What are we going to do?”

“Okay, okay, okay…let me call the guys and get them back here. I know for a fact that Roxie mentioned a specific spot she likes to stop for the dogs. Remember when we were on our way here? There’s a park that’s at the halfway point? Do you remember the name of it?”

Crap, I don’t.

“Look on Google Maps and map out our trip and see where the halfway point is. Maybe it will be on there?” I’m almost frantic at this point.

“Good idea. I’ll do that. Can you text Ash?”

“Um…I don’t have his number.” Huh. Should I have that?

“Okay, you do the map thing. I’ll call Zayne!”

Nodding, I run back outside to the deck, and it feels like everything’s happening in slow motion.

I walk all around and finally find my phone on the table where we had lunch.

Whew! I tap and scroll, and scroll and tap, and discover that there’s a big community park ninety minutes from here and it seems like I vaguely remember Roxie talking about it.

But I still scroll and search a little more, just to be certain. Then I run back inside and find Vanessa pacing in the kitchen.

“Any luck?” Van asks, and I show her my phone. “I know exactly where that is. The guys are on their way back. Zayne’s going to come with me to go after her.”

“Really? After everything she shared, do you think that’s a good idea? Maybe you and I should go.”

“I’m too upset to drive and I think you are too.

Plus…Roxie and Zayne are close. Closer than you think.

He actually went to her place when she and Theo were splitting up and he’s the one that physically removed Theo from the apartment.

It was scary as hell, but now he’s a little protective of her.

He was fairly adamant that he was going with me. ”

“Oh. Um…okay.”

“Look, I get that things got very intense out there with Loren. I’m not defending her, but maybe without me and Zayne and Roxie here, the two of you can talk?”

“Pfft. That means I’ll have to talk to her and Mike. You know she’s not going to talk to me alone after all that.”

“Damn. I really screwed this trip up, didn’t I?” It wasn’t a question.

“I think we’re all in one form of crisis or another,” I explain. “The fact that it was a funeral that got us all together probably didn’t help.” I shrug. “I get that you all hang out all the time, but…”

“Not really.”

“What?”

“We don’t hang out as much as we used to. At first, Roxie pulled back after she got married, and then again when she and Theo split up. Then Zayne and I hooked up and…”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Hooked up. That’s not like…do you see that phrase as a bad thing?”

She frowns. “No…why?”

“I said it yesterday and Ash got a little pissy about it. I just threw that phrase out there because it just seemed to fit.”

“I mean…I guess it doesn’t exactly sound great and maybe paints a picture of something a little…um…seedy? But when two people just get together and you’re not sure where it’s going, I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

“Thanks. I guess I just needed to hear that from another woman.”

We stand there in relative silence for several long moments before Vanessa speaks. “So, um…earlier, when I said the part about how I shouldn’t plan a vacation around you when there was a huge chance of you not even showing?”

“Don’t,” I quickly interrupt. “It’s okay. I get it. I haven’t been reliable, and I didn’t really think of how it affected all of you, and I’m sorry for that.”