chapter 2

Nik walked across the parking lot with Carlos and Angela. She was

grateful the exodus from the game hadn't started yet, so they didn't

have to wade through crowds of people. The few they did see gave her

dirty looks. That's right, she was the bitch who broke the pretty blond

boy's heart, live on the JumboTron.

She shook her head. That really had happened. She had really been

proposed to, and then abandoned, in front of the world.

She could not believe Fisher had done that to her. Just that he'd

proposed to her in the first place was shocking—she would have been

certain neither of them thought their relationship was heading toward

marriage. She didn't think either of them wanted their relationship to

head toward marriage. But not only did he do it, he did it in public. At

a baseball game? Good God, she was furious at him.

She also felt like a huge asshole. She'd just refused her boyfriend's

proposal in front of thousands of people. On his birthday. All of the

people giving her dirty looks hated her for a good reason. She hadn't

meant to hurt Fisher! He was a perfectly nice, incredibly boring guy.

She probably could have found a nicer way to respond to the proposal,

but she was so stunned she couldn't think straight. Plus, diplomacy

had never been her strong point.

Thank God she'd gotten rescued by the Wonder Twins here. She

should probably be wary of getting in a car with two strangers who had

picked her up at a baseball stadium at a low moment in her life, but she

didn't have the energy. She should especially be wary of this guy, who

seemed way too attractive for his own good, with his tousled dark

brown hair, big brown eyes, and that slight Saturday scruff on his

cheeks. Normal Nik wouldn't have trusted this guy for a second. Dazed

by the JumboTron, Nik had told him where she lived. But at this point,

she didn't have the strength to do anything but be relieved she was no

longer inside the stadium."Thanks again for getting me out of there. I was just sitting there

texting my girlfriends about this fiasco and trying to figure out how I

was going to get home when the camera crew showed up. I still can't

believe any of this happened."

Carlos unlocked his car, one of the fancy red sports cars she was

used to seeing around L.A. Ah, yes, of course the kind of guy who

would almost knock down the cameraman and smile while he did it

would have a red sports car. He opened the front passenger door for

her. She shook her head.

"Oh no, I can get in the back."

Angela laughed and opened the back door.

"Don't worry about it, Nikole. I think you deserve shotgun today."

"Nik." She needed to make this one thing clear, even though she

was only going to know these people for the length of the car ride to

Silver Lake. "Everyone calls me Nik. My first name is Nikole, yes, but

it's Nikole with a K."

Angela looked at Nik for a long beat, her hand still on the open back

door.

"But didn't the screen spell it . . ."

"With a C? It sure did!"

She got into the passenger seat and put her seatbelt on, and Angela

slid into the seat behind her.

"You do not mean to tell me he spelled your name wrong in his

proposal?" Angela said.

"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Only one of the many things

that stunned me about this afternoon." Her pocket buzzed. "Wait, hold

that thought, I have to tell my friends my ride is taken care of."

She had forty-three new text messages.

"Shit."

She clicked on her messages and let out a deep breath. Okay, thirty-

three of the messages were from the group chat with her girlfriends,

first their reactions to her initial texts about the proposal and then

their increasingly agitated texts asking her where the hell she was

when she stopped responding.Sorry sorry, camera crew was in my face, some strangers rescued me, getting a ride

back to the eastside from them right now, long story. Meet me at the bar within the hour.

She scrolled to her other new messages. Two were work related, she

would deal with those after she'd recovered from the hangover she had

every intention of having tomorrow morning. Oh my God, three were

from people she knew who had been at Dodger Stadium that afternoon

and had seen her on the JumboTron. There were more than eighteen

million people in the greater Los Angeles area, she knew no more than

a few hundred of them, max, and three of those had just HAPPENED

to be at Dodger Stadium the one time in her life she was there, just so

they could see the craziest thing that had ever happened to her? This

was like some sort of sick joke.

And the other five texts were from Fisher.

You fucking bitch, I can't believe

She turned the phone off and dropped it in her pocket. So Fisher

wasn't a perfectly nice guy after all. She wasn't even going to think

about looking at those texts until she had at least two or three shots of

bourbon in her.

"Everything okay?" Carlos asked, glancing over from the driver's

seat.

She laughed, even though none of this was really funny. Now she

understood what hysterical laughter really meant.

"As okay as anything can get today, I guess. Sorry for zoning out like

that, I had a bunch of texts. My friends are very relieved that I got out

of there in one piece."

"God, me, too," Carlos said. "When we saw that camera crew

coming for you, I was worried that you'd either punch them all and run

or burst into tears."

"Believe me, I was contemplating both," Nik said. "Unfortunately, I

don't exactly know how to land a punch, and I didn't really want to get

filmed crying on top of everything else."

He grinned at her, and she grinned back. It was refreshing to be

around a guy who would joke with her like this after months of Fisher,

who would only look at her blankly.

"Where to?" Carlos asked. "Do you want us to drop you at home, or

at a friend's house, or . . . ?"She was glad that she'd already made plans to meet Courtney and

Dana at the bar, otherwise Dazed-by-the-JumboTron Nik probably

would have given the first guy she'd met in forever who had a sense of

humor her home address.

"There's a bar on Sunset that has a bottle of bourbon with my name

all over it. My friends are meeting me there to hopefully get me drunk

enough so that I forget this day ever happened."

"I cannot believe he spelled your name wrong," Angela muttered

from the back seat.

"To be fair to him, we'd only been dating for five months, maybe he

just hadn't absorbed that bit of knowledge about me yet."

"Wait, WHAT?" She'd thought that Angela was the loud one, but

Carlos nearly shouted that. "You'd only been dating for five months,

and he proposed? In public?"

If she had to pick a strange man to rescue her, at least it was one

who was outraged by the right things.

"Exactly! We'd only been dating for five months, he proposed, in

public. And I'm the bad guy for rejecting him on his birthday?"

"You are not the bad guy," Carlos said. "Trust me on this."

She was tempted to text Fisher back, curse him out from here to

oblivion, and tell him what she really thought of his acting, but she

restrained herself. Barely.

Angela piped up from the back seat. "So, how long have you lived in

L.A., Nik?"

She was grateful for the opportunity to talk about something else.

"For about six years, but I've lived in California most of my life.

What about you guys?"

"Born and raised on the Eastside," Carlos said.

"Don't let my big brother over here act like he's got Eastside cred;

he's been living on the Westside for years and just moved back, thank

goodness."

"Thank goodness?" Carlos said. "This is the first I've heard of my

little sister being thankful that I'm back on the Eastside. Thankgoodness for what, so you can have someone to come over to your

house and kill spiders for you in the middle of the night?"

"Exactly!" Angela said. "That, and someone to build my IKEA

furniture for me, and to dog sit for me when I go out of town."

Carlos somehow managed to roll his eyes while keeping both eyes

on the road.

"You don't even have a dog!"

"But I might! Someday!"

The siblings' friendly bickering kept her entertained for the rest of

the ride to the bar. And more importantly, it kept her distracted

enough so she didn't text Fisher back.

By the time they pulled up to the Sanctuary, the bar that she and

her girlfriends had been coming to for almost as long as she'd lived in

L.A., she'd even managed to laugh a few times at the stories that Carlos

and Angela told about each other.

"You guys are going to come in, right?" she asked them. "I owe you

far more than a drink for what you did for me today, but we can start

with that."

Carlos and Angela exchanged a quick glance. It was a look full of

wordless communication, but she couldn't tell whether it was "This

woman seems crazy, let's get the fuck out of here" or just "I was getting

carsick in the back seat, let's get a drink."

"Sure," Carlos said. "I was about to get another beer anyway right

when all the action started at the game."

She felt her shoulders relax as soon as the three of them walked

inside the bar. The dark, cool interior was such a relief after the

unrelenting bright sunlight that she'd been enduring all day. She

pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head, where they would

undoubtedly get caught in her hair within minutes, and glanced toward

the corner of the room. Her friends Courtney and Dana were right

there, waiting for her in their favorite booth.

"I made it," she said as she walked up to them. "Where's my drink?"

"There." Dana pointed behind her. She turned around, and the

bartender, who had been pouring them drinks at least twice a week for

the past four years, handed her a glass of bourbon with one big icecube. That was fast. Granted, they were regulars there, but this was a

record. Courtney and Dana must have told Pete that something was

up.

"Thanks, Pete. Get my friends here whatever they want, please? On

me."

As Pete took their orders, she slid into the curved booth next to

Courtney.

"Hey," Courtney said. "You okay?"

She leaned her head against Courtney's shoulder for the briefest of

moments.

"I'm fine. Just kind of shell-shocked at what just happened, I think."

She motioned for Carlos and Angela to join her in the booth.

"Dana and Courtney, meet Carlos and Angela. They saved me in

about a dozen different ways this afternoon, and I will owe them far

more than my firstborn child. Carlos and Angela, these are my friends

Dana and Courtney, who were about to come to Dodger Stadium and

carry me away from that godforsaken place, so it turns out you saved

them, too."

Just then, the bartender brought two more drinks to the table.

"A toast!" Nik said when the drinks were on the table. "To

friendship, both real and feigned."

They all clinked glasses, and Nik took a deep gulp of her bourbon.

"Okay," Courtney said. "We need details. What did that toast mean?

He seriously proposed? For the record, I never liked Fisher. He was

never nice to me—I don't think fat Korean women were in his target

demographic. Where is he now? Did he cry? Tell us everything."

Nik took a deep breath. She still couldn't believe this had actually

happened to her.

Dana patted her on the shoulder and shook her head at Courtney.

"Let her finish her drink first! You don't have to tell us the story

right now. Are you hungry? Should we get pizza? What kind should we

get?"

She definitely wasn't drunk yet, but pizza sounded incredible right

now."Absolutely. Fisher hasn't eaten carbs in like two years, so pizza

sounds fantastic. I don't care what's on it as long as it includes

pepperoni and lots of cheese."

Dana pulled out her phone and opened a delivery app.

"Are you two in, too?" she asked Carlos and Angela. They both

nodded.

After a few clicks, Dana looked up from her phone.

"Okay, it's on its way here. Where were we?"

She took another sip of her drink. Thank God for bourbon.

"I don't know where we were, but to tell the story backward, that

toast was because these two pretended to be long-lost friends of mine

to save me from a camera crew. God bless them."

"A camera crew?" Courtney stared at her, then at Carlos and Angela,

Nik guessed to confirm she hadn't lost her mind.

"Yep." Carlos nodded. "We were sitting a few rows behind Nik and

saw the whole proposal happen. And then when we saw the camera

crew walking toward her, we knew we had to do something."

"Where did you even come up with that idea? That was brilliant!"

Dana said.

He nodded and lifted his glass.

"Thank you for that; I agree, it was brilliant." He grinned at Nik,

and despite herself, she grinned back at him. "But I have to admit, the

credit all goes to our cousin Jessie. She told me a story once about a

woman in a parking lot doing that to her when there was a creepy guy

following her, and I guess it stuck with me."

Angela laughed.

"I was going to let my brother take the credit for that idea, even

though I knew he got it from Jessie. I'm just glad to know he pays

attention to the women in his family."

Nik couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a man voluntarily

give credit to a woman for an idea. That was one of the major reasons

she'd gone freelance, all of the men talking over her and pretending

they'd come up with her ideas, even when everyone had heard her say

them out loud."Oh, please," Carlos said. "I pay probably too much attention to all

of you."

Nik finished her drink, and within seconds another one showed up

on the table in front of her.

"Thanks, Pete," she, Courtney, and Dana said in unison.

"You three must tip very well," Carlos said.

They all laughed.

"That, and Pete's had a crush on Dana for at least two years,"

Courtney said. Dana grinned and shrugged.

"Okay, okay." Nik took a sip of her new drink and set it down. "And

now for my part of the story. Here is the most important thing: I had

NO IDEA that anything like this was coming. I was racking my brain

on the way here for where this came from, and I swear, I had no hints."

She'd actually started wondering within the last few weeks how

much longer this Fisher thing would last. Not only did he bore her, but

she didn't really think he was all that interested in her, either. She

didn't look like the models his friends all dated, he didn't even pretend

to be interested in her work, and she found his laughable. A great

recipe for a marriage!

"Anyway. The game was whatever, fine, boring, sunny, et cetera.

And then all of a sudden, Fisher told me to look at something. I

thought it was some stupid baseball thing, so I looked at the field, but

then he pointed toward the JumboTron. And up there, in twelve-foot-

high letters, was something like 'I love you, will you marry me?'"

"You forgot the most important part," Angela said. "It said 'Nicole, I

love you, will you marry me?' Nicole with a C!"

Dana and Courtney gasped in unison. The appropriate response.

"He spelled your name wrong in his proposal?" Courtney asked.

"Yes!" Nik said. "But wait, think about that part later, let me get the

whole story out first. So when I saw the thing up on the screen, I

thought it was some sort of joke or that he was just showing me

because that's my name and it was someone else in the stadium, or

something like that. He'd never even said I love you to me before—

which, if he had, this whole nightmare today never would havehappened, because I'd have cut that thing off in a heartbeat, but

anyway. Wait, where was I?"

"You saw it up on the screen . . . ?" Dana prompted her.

"Oh, yeah. So I turned to him, and he was down on one knee. With a

ring box in his hand!"

"What did the ring look like?" Courtney asked.

"The ring?" Nik paused. She'd been so freaked out at the time she

hadn't even looked at it. "I have no idea. I don't think I even saw it.

Hell, I don't even remember what I said to him, something about how

we should have talked about this before, and then he said something

like, 'Are you saying no?' and I told him I wasn't saying that out loud,

and then he told me to just live a little. LIVE A LITTLE. Like deciding

to get married on a whim is the thing all the cool girls are doing these

days. And when I again refused, he got furious and stood up and left

and his friends followed him." She turned to Carlos. "Did I forget

anything?"

Carlos made a face. Oh shit, what had she forgotten?

"Just that . . . just that there was a camera on you the whole time, so

the entire thing was broadcast to the whole stadium. No one could hear

what you were saying—I mean, we could, we were just a few rows

behind you and your dude talked pretty loudly—but what was going on

was probably pretty clear to everyone."

"Oh yeah, right. That part." Nik put her head down on the table. "I

think I need to just stay here for the next few days. Throw a blanket

over me and just leave me here in the bar, and for the love of God, take

my phone with you. Maybe by the time I resurface, everyone will forget

that any of this ever happened."

Dana patted Nik on the back and Courtney took the phone that Nik

had tossed on the table and tucked it away in her pocket.

Someone pushed her drink against her hand. She grabbed it, lifted

her head, took a sip, and put her head back down on the table. Thank

God for bourbon.

"Did I forget anything else?" Nik sat up and pushed her hair back.

"I saw the ring," Angela said.

"WHAT?" the whole table said in unison.Angela looked at Carlos.

"You didn't see it? Oh yeah. He opened the ring box when he first

got down on one knee, and the camera zeroed in on the ring. I can't

believe you didn't notice."

She knew there was a reason she'd wanted Carlos and Angela to

stay.

"Well?" Nik asked. "Don't keep me in suspense. What did it look

like? Please tell me you remember."

Angela paused.

"Okay, you know the Kate Middleton ring, right? The Princess

Diana one? With the huge sapphire in the middle and diamonds all

around it? It looked just like that. Except smaller."

Nik banged her drink down on the table. It sloshed everywhere, but

she was past the point of caring.

"Does he think he's some kind of a prince?" She took a deep breath.

"Wait, that sounded mean. That was mean, I guess. But . . ."

"But you are not a princess ring kind of person," Courtney finished.

"But I am not a princess ring kind of person!" Nik said. "Nothing

against princess rings, but IF I wanted an engagement ring from him—

which I absolutely did not—it wouldn't have been a replica of a

princess ring. He obviously doesn't know me that well; I'm not a

baseball-game proposal kind of person, either. But seriously, a princess

ring? For ME?"

"You did get up at four a.m. to watch Harry and Meghan's wedding

though," Dana said.

"That was different," Nik said. "Anyway, is there anything else I

missed about the proposal?" she asked Carlos and Angela. "Am I

remembering the forlorn look on Fisher's face correctly?"

Carlos shrugged. "He looked more outraged than forlorn, really.

Like a kid having a tantrum."

Yeah . . . that sounded like Fisher, unfortunately. She mopped up

her spilled drink with some of the extra napkins Pete had left on the

table."Carlos is right," Angela said. "No offense, but he seemed like kind

of a baby."

Nik shrugged and sighed. Fisher had been kind of a baby. A baby

with beautiful blond hair he constantly admired in the mirror and

great abs. So yeah, it made sense that he would yell and storm off when

she'd publicly rejected his proposal.

"None taken. He was kind of a baby. But babies can be pretty great

sometimes—isn't that why people like them?"

Carlos cleared his throat.

"As a professional baby expert: people like babies because they're

cute, they have big heads, and because they're pretty helpless without

us. They can scream really loudly, though."

Courtney nodded.

"Yep, that sounds like Fisher. Down to the big—"

"COURTNEY!"

Dana and Courtney giggled and high-fived, and Nik tried and failed

to suppress her laughter.

"You two are the worst friends in the history of the world, do you

know that?"

They nodded, still laughing.

"We know," Dana said.

• • •

Carlos coughed. Maybe they needed a reminder that there was a guy at

the table with them?

Nope, that just made all four women, his little sister included,

glance his way and laugh harder. Excellent. He looked at Nik, who was

looking back at him. She winked at him. He grinned and winked back.

One of the friends' phone buzzed. Dana, right? She was the black

one who looked like a model. Courtney was the Korean one with pink

lipstick on.

"Pizza's here!" she said. A few minutes later, a huge pizza box

covered their table, and they all had big pieces of pizza in their hands,the pepperoni oil dripping onto more napkins that the bartender had

thrown onto their table.

"I didn't even ask if anyone was a vegetarian or gluten-free or

anything," Dana said. He and Angela both shook their heads.

"This is a Los Angeles rarity, to have five people at a table all dig

into a cheese-covered, two-meat, gluten-filled pizza without

hesitating."

Nik lifted her almost empty glass.

"To new friends and gluten!"

They all toasted and stuffed pizza into their mouths.

"Wait." Nik looked up at him and started to say something, but

stopped to finish chewing her bite of pizza. "Did you say a few minutes

ago that you're a baby expert?"

His sister just shook her head.

"My brother. Always with the delusions of grandeur."

He had the opportunity to impress three attractive women with his

degrees and knowledge—could his sister at least try to be a good

wingman here?

"I'm a pediatrician, but to be perfectly honest, I don't see a lot of

babies anymore. I'm the assistant director of the teen clinic at Eastside

Medical Center."

"Oh." Nik put her pizza down and reached for a napkin. "You're a

doctor."

Okay, he'd never had a woman with that look on her face when he'd

said he was a doctor. Like she'd smelled something bad.

"Oooh, you brought us a doctor?" Courtney poked Nik.

Nik looked at Dana and rolled her eyes.

"A doctor," Courtney said, presumably to the table at large. "That's

a normal job. I didn't think people in L.A. had normal jobs anymore.

All of the jobs here are, like, writer, magician, fit model, actor, cupcake

baker, dog walker, social media manager, juice shop cashier, and

nonsense like that."

"Well, what do you all do?" he asked Nik and her friends."Writer," Nik said.

"Cupcake baker," Courtney said.

"Actor," Dana said.

He and Angela both laughed, but they didn't.

"Oh wait. You're serious?"

Nik nodded and sipped at the dregs of her drink.

"It's true. We're a parody of L.A. sitting right here." She turned to

Angela. "What about you? You are also probably something normal,

like a teacher or a social worker or an accountant."

"Marketing, for one of the studios," Angie said. "I'm also a parody.

Granted, I got my MBA first, so I could have done a normal job, but no,

I went straight for the L.A. stereotype."

"What kind of stuff do you write?" Carlos asked Nik.

"Lots of entertainment and celebrity-related stuff, and some more

newsy journalism occasionally."

"What about Fisher?" Carlos couldn't keep himself from asking.

"Was he also an L.A. stereotype, or was he a lawyer or trader or

something?"

Nik shook her head. "Actor! I should have known! Never date an

actor; you get proposed to in public with a fucking princess ring." She

took another bite of pizza and swallowed it. "Sorry, Dana. No offense."

"None taken," Dana said.

Nik sighed.

"Speaking of Fisher . . . he sent me some texts after he left the game.

I only saw a glimpse of one of them, but . . . it wasn't so great. I guess I

probably need to read the rest, right?"

Ahh, that's probably what she had been looking at when her face

shuttered when they were in the car. She probably didn't want to talk

about this with strangers around. Carlos caught Angela's eye, and she

nodded.

"Ladies, my sister and I should take off. We have a family event that

we have to get to and we can't be late.""Oh!" Nik looked up. Was it just his imagination that her face fell?

"If you have to go, I understand. But you guys, I can't thank you

enough for today; you two saved me on what was maybe one of the

weirdest days of my life."

Angela stood up, and all of the women followed her out of the

booth.

"It was our pleasure," she said. Nik threw her arms around Angie

and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. Then she

moved over to Carlos.

"Carlos, thank you so much." She gave him a tight hug and a kiss on

the cheek. He almost kissed her back, but stopped himself just in time.

She'd probably had enough out of men today.

"Glad we could help."

Dana and Courtney both hugged him, too.

"Thanks for taking care of our girl until she could get back to us.

You are the prince of the day," Dana said.

He and Angie left Nik and her friends to dissect the texts,

something he knew women loved to do.

• • •

"That was nice of him, to leave just then," Dana said, after the three of

them sat back down in their booth alone.

"What do you mean?" Nik said as she reached for another piece of

pizza. "They said they had a family thing."

Dana rolled her eyes.

"Sure they did. He wanted to let you show us Fisher's texts without

him around, so he made up some reason to leave." She took a sip of her

drink. "I don't often say this about men, but I liked him."

Courtney nodded.

"I liked him, too. You know what I think?"

Oh God. Whenever Courtney asked that question, either something

great or something terrible was on its way. Sometimes it was a little bit

of both.

Nik rested her chin on her hand and closed her eyes."What do you think?"

"I think Carlos should be your rebound."

This time it was just terrible.

"Dana, talk some sense into her, please." Nik looked from Dana to

Courtney. "Number one, Fisher and I broke up, like two hours ago.

Number two, Carlos seems like a very nice guy, but he's a doctor, come

on."

Dana looked at her blankly.

"And?"

What was wrong with them?

"And Justin was a doctor, remember?"

Dana and Courtney looked at each other, then back at her.

"Yes, Justin was a doctor," Dana said, in her most patient voice. Nik

hated that voice. "That doesn't mean that all doctors are assholes."

That's not what she meant and they knew it.

Well, okay. That was kind of what she meant. But still.

"Justin was a surgeon." Courtney took a gulp of her drink and

slammed the empty glass onto the table. "That's different than a

pediatrician."

Not that different. She hadn't seen or talked to Justin in years, but

she remembered him and his God complex all too well.

"Plus," Courtney said, "Carlos is hot. I would go for him myself, but

he was staring at you all night."

Nik rolled her eyes and drained her glass.

"That is not true."

"Oh, come on," Dana said. "Even I think he was hot, and I'm a

lesbian."

Nik shook her head.

"I'm not arguing that point. Of course he's hot, did you see those

forearms? I meant it's not true that he was staring at me all night."

Courtney and Dana looked at each other and laughed. There was no

point in arguing with them about this. Especially since she wasn't evensure if she was right.

"You have a rebound with Carlos if you want," she said to Courtney.

"I'm taking a vow of celibacy. Men are clearly not for me at this point

in my life."

Dana and Courtney dissolved into laughter.

"No really, you guys. I mean it!"

Their heads were down on the table. Courtney's face was possibly

buried in a slice of pizza? It apparently didn't matter, they were still

laughing.

"I'm not joking! I need a break. Once you find yourself on the

JumboTron with a guy kneeling at your feet with a princess ring in his

hand, you start to reevaluate your life, okay?"

Courtney sat up, a piece of pepperoni in her bangs. After that

performance, Nik wasn't going to tell her it was there.

Dana gulped down the rest of her drink and waved Pete over for

more drinks.

"A pitcher of water, too, please," Nik said to him. "I want to be able

to at least somewhat function tomorrow."

As soon as he walked away, Dana turned to her.

"If we say we believe you and your vow of celibacy, can we get back

to Fisher's texts?"

"We believe you, we believe you," Courtney said, the pepperoni

bobbing up and down as she nodded her head.

They did not actually believe her, she knew that, but there was no

point in arguing with them right now. They'd see. She took her phone

back from Courtney.

"Here." Nik unlocked the phone and pushed it across the table.

"After the glimpse that I saw, I don't know if I want to see the rest."

Dana picked up the phone and Courtney looked over her shoulder.

Nik looked at their faces as they scrolled through the messages. After

about two seconds, they both looked ready to kill.

"That bad, huh?" she asked.Courtney's eyes narrowed at the phone. Oh no, it was even worse

than she'd thought.

"Okay. What do they say?"

Dana cleared her throat. Thank God neither of them offered to just

delete them for her. Her friends knew her far too well for that.

"'You fucking bitch, I can't believe you did that to me on my

birthday.' That was the first one," Dana said.

"'I can't believe you would be that stupid. I was the best thing that

ever happened to you.'" Dana looked up from the phone. Nik nodded

for her to continue. "'You're such a'—I'm not saying that word—'my

friends always said so. I saw your potential when no one else did. You

were lucky to be with me, you're never going to get the chance again.

No one else will ever love an unfeeling bitch like you.'"

Well, at least she didn't need to feel guilty about hurting him

anymore.

"I don't want anyone else to ever love this unfeeling bitch.

Something terrible always happens when a man says 'I love you.' First,

Justin said it and then he tried to sabotage my career, then Fisher said

it and I get put on a big screen and he texts insults to me. If that's what

love means, no thank you."

Dana took a sip of her drink and kept reading.

"'You're going to die alone, and you could have been my princess.'

There are five exclamation points at the end of the word princess. FYI."

At least that made her laugh. Thank God for unnecessary

exclamation points.

"Okay, and here's the pièce de résistance." Dana pushed the phone

over to her, and she looked at the picture that filled the screen: Fisher,

Dodgers cap on backward, middle finger in the air, with the princess

engagement ring on said finger.

"OH MY GOD."

Dana and Courtney exploded with laughter. Courtney's head shook

so much that the pepperoni finally fell onto the table and she didn't

even notice. Nik laughed until tears streamed out of her eyes. They

collapsed against the booth cushions, laughing so much and so loudlythat even the too-cool-for-school dudes at the end of the bar turned

and stared.

"Are you KIDDING me? Is this some collective hallucination? What

was IN those drinks that Pete brought us? Since when is Fisher Vanilla

freaking Ice?"

"Well." Nik managed to stop laughing and reached for what was

definitely her final drink. "I feel better already."