Fall From Grace

GRACE

“Thanks for coming out with me. I am so glad you were in town this week. I have no idea what to wear to a gala.”

Faye just laughs as she looks through a rack of dresses at the boutique we are in. “Well, good thing Hunter is so charitable with his money or else I wouldn’t know either. Anna probably could have helped. She has been to some awards shows.”

I look over at her. “Have you talked to her? She keeps making excuses about being sick.”

Faye nods. “I know. I think she’s pregnant. But she won’t tell me. And I get it. It would be way too soon to let the cat out of the bag. But it’s obvious.”

“Yeah, she was actually free to meet me for lunch the other day and she ran to the bathroom looking like she was going to puke.”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut. I’m happy for her and Noah. I know they’ve been trying for a while.”

I hold up a plain black floor-length dress. “What about this one?”

Faye scrunches her nose. “Maybe for a rich man’s funeral.” She pulls out a red sequin dress. “You need something that is going to make a certain man not want to take his eyes off you.”

“You know I am going with my brother,” I retort.

“I wasn’t talking about him, you dimwit. I was talking about Carson.”

I frown at her, then turn to look at another rack of black dresses.

“Okay, get away from the funeral rack, come over here.” She pulls me to the rack she was looking at of sparkly dresses. “Trouble in paradise?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Well I wasn’t going to say anything until you decided to spill but Anna told me that she went to Carson’s house and found you half-naked there.”

My cheeks turn red thinking about that and how I tried to talk my way out of that. She showed up three weeks ago on a Monday night when things were still okay with us and I was in his damn T-shirt. She just walked in to pick up the Tupperware and I was caught red-handed.

“It’s kind of hot. Boss. Employee. I mean, that was kind of like Hunter and me.”

“Well it’s not hot. It’s a mess. And something I never should have done.”

“What happened?”

I pull out a pink dress and she shakes her head. “Well, we’ve been fucking for almost two months now. And then two weeks ago, I brought up Tiffany, and he lost it.”

“Oh.”

I glare at her. “Oh? That’s all you have to say. You guys were the ones that told me about her.”

She adjusts the topknot on her head and avoids eye contact with me. “Well yes, but we didn’t think you were involved with him.”

“What happened?”

“She walked out on him two weeks before they were to get married.”

I nod. “Yeah, I knew this.”

“And then she started dating someone less than a month later.”

“Oh.”

Faye nods. “And to make matters worse. We think she is engaged to the man now too.”

“Ohhh.” I drag it out, everything making sense.