Muffin Top

“We also have an Uber out front waiting,” Tess said, already shifting toward the door, obviously more than ready to get somewhere less crowded.

Sure, she’d been imbibing, but her girls all looked stone cold sober. “Why?”

Gina rolled her eyes and all but yelled out duh. “Because we can’t drive around with a body in the back of our own car.”

Finally. She was with her people who understood. God, she loved her friends.

“Come on,” Fallon said, patting the backpack she had slung over one shoulder. “I got a bottle of the extra spicy, set-your-mouth-on-fire vodka from the craft vodka bar on Fifth.”

“Plus we have ice cream,” Tess said.

“And shovels,” Gina finished.

Lucy stood up and pulled all of her girls in for a group hug. “I love you guys.”

“We love you, too,” Fallon said, cutting right to the point. “Now let’s go.”

They may have scared the Uber driver with their loud laughter and detailed plans for removing most of the men from the planet. That was okay, Lucy could live with it, because they made it to her apartment building faster than normal. LeRoy, the world’s best doorman, tipped his hat in greeting as they made their way to the elevators in one giggling mass of estrogen and booze. They’d opened up the vodka bottle in the Uber. Hey, dire times called for dire measures.

“Thank God you have a real TV,” Tess said as they spilled into Lucy’s apartment, heading straight into the living room and ignoring the floor-to-ceiling windows that provided an amazing view of Harbor City’s sparkling skyline across the water. “Doing this at Gina’s house when Ford temporarily lost his mind was a giant pain in the ass.”

Lucy gasped and clapped her hands before flopping down onto her couch and kicking off her heels. “You got angry chick flicks for me?”

“Even better,” Gina said, holding up the tub of ice cream as if it were the Stanley Cup. “We got kickass sci-fi chicks!”

Lucy’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t.” They understood how much she was hurting without her having to explain a single thing to them. She really could not have better friends.

“Yes!” Gina and Tess hollered at the same time.

“I’m scared to ask, but what are you guys freaking out about?” Fallon asked, looking at the three of them as if they were totally clueless.

“It’s tradition, sort of like Paint and Sip,” Lucy said, relaxing for the first time in days. “When something shitty happens, we regroup with some of our favorite chick flicks.”

“And the sci-fi scream dance thing you just did?” Fallon asked.

Gina grabbed the remote and pulled up Netflix on the smart TV before going straight to the strong female leads section. “We only break out Aliens and Mad Max: Fury Road for the most dire of situations, because if you can watch Ripley or Furiosa and not walk away feeling like you can kick ass, then you are watching a different movie than I am.”

“But first we need ice cream and glasses.” Tess hooked her arm through Fallon’s and started tugging her toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. “Come help me with supplies.”

As Tess strong-armed Fallon into the hallway with all the subtlety of a moose in a field of fluffy white bunnies, Lucy shook her head and turned to Gina. “So you drew the short straw, huh?”

“More like they thought I might know what in the hell to say.” Gina sat down on the couch and laid her head down on Lucy’s shoulder.

“Do you?” Damn, she hated sounding so hopeful.

“I might, if you tell me what happened.”

Yeah, that part. That was what she didn’t want to do. It hurt too much. It made her really think about what went down when she wasn’t overwhelmed with embarrassment and hurt. So she shoved that away and went with the awful part on the surface.

“He told some guys in the bar that he was doing the fat girl fuck party.”

Gina gasped, and her eyes rounded. A red blotch of anger bloomed on her throat as she reached for the vodka bottle, snatched it from Lucy’s grasp, and took a swig straight from it. Then she gasped again because that vodka was no joke.

“Two things,” Gina said, her eyes watering a little as she thumped her palm against her chest. “One, did he use those words? Two, what does that mean?”

“No.” There went that string of guilt tightening around her stomach and making her shift in her seat. “But that’s what they were talking about—how fat girls work harder for it in bed because we have to be freaks in the sheets or we’d never get laid.”

“That’s awful.” Gina put the vodka down on the coffee table and wrapped her arms around Lucy in a tight hug. “I can’t believe Frankie would agree to something like that. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just having to really process that.”