Muffin Top

“Well, I never heard him agree, but he didn’t deny it, either.”

Gina cocked her head to the side. “So, he didn’t say it, and he didn’t say he didn’t say it?”

Lucy had played and replayed the conversation in her head a million times, and she couldn’t shake the idea that her initial reaction may have been more about the shoe she’d been waiting to drop rather than anything that Frankie had really done. But if she admitted that, even to herself, what did she have to think about other than what he’d said to her?

“It wasn’t just that,” she said, taking in a shaky breath as the guilt of knowing she wasn’t giving up the whole story ate at her. “He told me I was projecting all of my emotional baggage on him.”

Gina lifted her head and looked her dead in the eyes. There wasn’t any judgement there, but there wasn’t any coddling, either. They’d been through too much together as friends for all of that.

“Do you think that might be possible?”

“No!”

She wasn’t holding her parents’ sins against him. She wasn’t. She was just being cautious, smart. She’d seen how love could fuck someone over. What kind of an idiot would she be not to protect herself from that by being realistic about how things really worked?

“Look, I love you,” Gina said, which was never a message followed by “and you’re totally right about everything.” “There is no one else in the world like you, and I’d be lost without you, so don’t take this the wrong way… But you have been known to try to take control of a situation by embracing the worst of it and forcing it to do your bidding.”

“Well yeah, it’s what makes me so good at my job.”

“True.” Gina gave her a patient smile. “But those skills aren’t always the ones you want to break out when it comes to relationships.”

Lucy sat up, anger streaking its way up her spine so fast she was kind of surprised it didn’t shoot out her fingertips. “So I should just roll over and accept what I can get?”

“Absolutely not.” Gina shook her head, sending her brown waves flying. “You deserve to have someone who loves you for who you are, which is a pretty human being who is equal parts fierce and amazing.”

Fuck. It was really hard to stay pissed when her bestie said something like that and actually meant it. Still, she grumbled, “I’m not fishing for compliments.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Please remind me of a time when you ever needed to do that with me or Tess, or Fallon for that matter. We love you because of who you are, as should anyone with half a brain. And I’m not telling you that Frankie was in the right.” She paused and took Lucy’s hand in hers before letting out a deep breath and continuing on. “But here’s my question: Is it possible that he may not be the only one in the wrong?”

She was saved from having to think too much about that because Fallon and Tess came back into the living room armed with shot glasses and bowls of ice cream.

“We would have given you more time, but the ice cream’s melting,” Tess said.

“Yeah, and I couldn’t eavesdrop at all,” Fallon said. “Your kitchen is too far away for that.”

Blunt as always, Fallon cracked her up—even with all of the questions swirling around in her because Gina’s words echoed that little voice in her head that she’d been doing her best to drown out. Tonight wasn’t about that, though. Looking at her friends gathered around her, she knew that this was about the one relationship she could always depend on no matter what happened—her friendship with this kick-ass bunch of women.

“Well, if there’s ice cream and booze, then I declare it movie time,” Lucy said, getting into the spirit of the night whether she felt it all the way to her toes or not.

“Aliens or Mad Max?” Gina asked, aiming the remote at the big screen.

“Let me think about that,” Lucy said, shaking her head at the other woman. “I can ogle Tom Hardy and cheer on the most badass gang of motorcycle grandmas ever? How is there even a thought about which one should go first?”

“Point,” Gina said and hit start on Mad Max: Fury Road.

Everyone settled in on the couch to watch the awesomeness, but no matter how loud the cars’ engines or the screaming guitar, Lucy couldn’t quiet the question Gina asked. And if her bestie and that annoying voice in her head were right, what in the hell was she going to do about it?

Because unlike when her clients came into her office, Lucy had no go-to plan for how to fix the mess she’d made of her own life.