Page 16

THE NEXT DAY was a bad one for Mom, and Gigi must’ve found out, because she asked if I wanted to hit up Iwan Ashton’s new restaurant.

I didn’t, but thirteen cat memes later I caved.

So I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower, putting on a random music mix on my phone.

“Troublemaker,” a song from Renegade’s self-titled album from the late aughts, popped up.

I was halfway through it when I heard a vocal track I didn’t recognize.

It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t in the song.

It was Sasha. Singing.

“Uh … Sasha?” I called.

He went silent. Then: “J-Jo?”

“I have about a hundred questions, but the most important one is: Are you doing the dance, too?” Gigi had made me learn it, and no one ever told you when you were a teenager that muscle memory was forever.

“No …”

I could tell he was lying. Weirdly. “Liar.”

“How do you know this song? It’s like fifteen years old.”

“I was a teenager fifteen years ago, and this is my random shower mix, what’s your excuse?” I replied, rinsing out my hair.

“You’re in the shower?” His voice was forcibly nonchalant.

That was when I realized my mistake. My cheeks heated. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not making it weird!” He guffawed. “You’re making it weird!”

“Says the one making it weird!” I batted back in mortification, so flustered that I didn’t get all the suds out of my hair before I turned off the water. “Get out of my head!”

“I—wha—sure, and lemme roll a boulder up a hill while I’m at it,” he replied, and started to think of—

“Stop thinking about a naked grandma!”

“What am I supposed to—”

“Find a different boner killer!”

“I am going to go walk into the sea, where I may drown.”

“Good luck,” I hissed, “because shit floats.”

I didn’t hear from him again, but Dad did come in to check on me because he’d heard me talking to myself, and I never did get the rest of the suds out of my hair. I deleted my entire playlist. Eternity would be too soon to listen to it again.

Gigi was already seated at Citrus, reading down the sparse menu, by the time I got there. My hair was crunchy from the dried suds, but I hoped it just looked like hair gel.

“Did you ever use his cookbook?” she asked, flipping the menu over.

“I don’t really cook,” I replied, slipping into the chair opposite her.

The designer had done a good job renovating the old Presbyterian church, keeping its farm-style decor while adding a bit of life to the wooden rafters and beautiful stained glass.

There were hanging vines in stone pots that looked like statues, and large wagonwheel chandeliers draped from the ceiling.

A few paintings hung on the walls, all beautiful watercolor landscapes of places I’d never been, though there was a brown-haired woman messing with one of them on the other side of the restaurant, trying to level it correctly. She didn’t seem satisfied.

“I love most of his stuff, but the lemon pie was a total miss,” Gigi said, handing the menu to me. “Too sweet.”

“Then I won’t suggest the lemon pie,” said a man as he came up to the table. Gigi and I both glanced up, and he smiled at us. He had reddish-brown hair and gray eyes, his freckled skin blushed with sunburn.

Gigi returned the smile. “Been too long, Ashton.”

The handsome man winked at her and then slid his gaze over to me. “Nice to see you both. Congrats on everything, Joni. I always figured you’d break out.”

“I didn’t know you were in town!” I hopped to my feet and hugged him. Gigi did the same.

“I sort of did,” she admitted.

The woman who had been straightening one of the paintings came over. “Iwan, do you have a level? I think the Leaning Tower is crooked …”

“I would be alarmed if it wasn’t?” he replied, and she gave him a dry look.

He drew her close and kissed her on the cheek.

“I’ll get that for you in a minute. Lemon, this is Gigi and Joni,” he added, motioning to us.

The woman was about our age—early thirties—with a blunt-cut brown bob and a heart-shaped face.

Her nails were painted a lovely pale yellow, and there were paint smudges on her fingertips.

“Joni’s the songwriter who wrote that Willa Grey song you’re obsessed with. ”

The woman, Lemon, lit up. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’m Clementine,” she added, outstretching her hand to me. “I love that song. And I want you to know if I ever find out who the guy is who inspired it, put me in, Coach, I’ll fight the son of a bitch.”

I actually laughed at that. “Noted.”

“Get in line,” Gigi added, and everyone laughed.

Gigi and I decided to trust whatever Iwan wanted to order for us, to surprise us, so he did just that. And his girlfriend found a level to go fix the painting.

“I hope with a restaurant here it’ll mean you’ll come back more often?” Gigi asked.

He shrugged. “Probably. Mom’s renting out her house. She couldn’t bear to sell it. You ready to go, Lemon?” he added to Clementine as she returned with the level.

“I think I just painted it crooked,” she admitted, and checked her watch. “Oh, we should definitely go, or we’ll miss our flight.”

“Right. It was nice seeing you two,” he said to us, and then tapped the table. “Also, your check is covered—no exceptions. My treat, yeah?” Then he hugged us one last time, before he and his girlfriend spirited themselves out the door to some great unknown.

Gigi watched them go with a look of wistfulness. “I never thought Iwan would settle down,” she commented. “But he looks so happy, you know? It’s nice.”

I couldn’t pick out which part she thought was nice—the fact that he looked happy, or the desire to settle down? I wondered if that was a clue. Did she want to settle down? Had Mitch asked already, or was he waiting for the perfect moment? And either way— why hadn’t either of them told me anything?

Guess I had to do it myself.

“Do you think you will?” I asked, as subtle as a freight train.

She feigned naivete. “What do you mean?”

“You and Mitch. Do you think, if he ever asks, you’ll settle down?”

Gigi straightened her silverware, not meeting my gaze.

In my head, Sasha said, “Oh this is new, I hear you … meddling?”

I’m not meddling.

“You are very much meddling.”

Finally, Gigi said, tilting her head in thought, “Remember when we were kids, and we’d dress up in your mom’s clothes from the eighties and paint our nails black and pretend we were on some sort of world tour? Traveling everywhere, seeing the world, singing in a band—remember?”

“Sure, and then Mitch got so jealous that he begged us to take him on our world tour.”

She grinned at the memory. “I miss those kids sometimes.”

“Well, it’s a good thing they’re all still friends,” I replied. “Which is a miracle since two of them are siblings and two of them are dating—not the same two, obviously.”

She snorted a laugh. “I think our appetizers are coming out,” she added, nudging her chin behind me, and then after that the main course, and by the time the waiter surprised Gigi with a lemon pie and a note— It’s not that sweet xx Iwan —it was almost impossible to bring the engagement back up again.