“You got it,” I said, hopping to my feet. I might not be good at soothing a broken heart, but shooting whiskey? That I could do.
I hurried down the steps of Margot’s beautiful townhouse and pulled a bottle of Two James Grass Widow Bourbon from a kitchen cupboard. Tucking it under my arm, I grabbed three little glasses from another shelf and headed back up.
When I reached her bedroom, Margot was sitting up against the bed, blowing her nose in a tissue. Claire sat next to her, holding the box.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” I said, setting the glasses down and sitting cross-legged, facing them. I opened the bottle and poured about an inch into each glass, handing one to Margot and one to Claire. Setting the bottle aside, I picked up mine and we all took a sip.
Margot sighed. “God, I need this.” She tipped her glass back again, finishing the contents.
“Easy, hon,” Claire warned.
I picked up the bottle and poured her some more. “So easy.”
It almost made her smile. “Fuck, you guys. My head.”
“I can imagine,” I said. Her eyes were so red and puffy, I didn’t know how she could see. “Want to tell us what happened?”
She sipped again before talking. “Probably exactly what you think. I brought up getting engaged last night at dinner, and he changed the subject. I tried again when we got back here, and he went home with a headache. I tried a third time this morning after brunch, and he finally admitted he’d been putting off telling me something for a while because he didn’t want to hurt me.”
“What did he say?” Claire asked.
“That he changed his mind. He doesn’t want to get married.”
“Doesn’t want to get married now? Or ever?” I wondered.
Margot nodded. “That’s what I asked. And he said definitely not now, and maybe not ever.”
“Well, what the fuck?” I frowned. “Why did he lead you to believe otherwise for the last three years?”
“I asked him that too. He said people change.”
“Within a few months?” Claire snapped. “He just asked you about a ring in December!”
“I know,” Margot said before a big swallow of bourbon, “but now he says he’s perfectly happy with the way things are and he doesn’t want anything to change.”
Happiness is always a for-now thing, I heard myself telling Quinn the night I laid out the rules for him.
But don’t you think it’s possible to know that something or someone would always make you happy? he’d asked.
Lately the question had begun to haunt me.
“That’s bullshit.” Claire sat up taller. “So he just wants you to wait around until he decides he’s ready for things to change?”
“Basically.” Margot shrugged, her eyes filling. “But there’s no guarantee he’ll ever want things to change. He refused to make any promises.”
So what? I thought. Promises, like rules, could be broken. But I said nothing.
“God, I want to punch his smug chin right now,” Claire said. “I’m sorry, but I hate his chin. The way he points it at people.”
“It’s OK, I hate it right now too.” Margot drank a little more. “And the sex lately has been bad, you guys.”
“Really?” I blinked at her.
She nodded. “I don’t know why, exactly. It seemed perfectly fine for three years and then it just got—I don’t know. Routine. Too fast.”
“But doesn’t that always happen over time?” I asked. “I mean, you can’t expect that initial spark to last for years, can you?” Although, to be honest, I couldn’t imagine the spark between Quinn and me dying out. What the hell?
“Sure, you can,” Claire argued. “I’ve seen plenty of couples who have great sexual chemistry and have been together for years. Look at my parents! It’s embarrassing how much they touch each other all the time!”