Muffin Top

Ignoring that little voice in her head that hadn’t shut up since she’d walked out of Marino’s two nights ago, she turned and glared at Zach. It was, after all, his fault that she couldn’t drown out the voice with another vodka and Mountain Dew. Men. They were the worst.

“You know,” she said, giving him the glare that left the majority of her clients quiet and quaking. “The Post is right. You really are an asshole.”

But, of course, he wasn’t just a regular client. He shrugged those big shoulders of his that only reminded her of Frankie and how he’d held that stupid birdbath bowl for close to an eternity all to help her win some stupid competition.

“Probably,” Zach said, glancing at something behind her. “But I’m also off duty.”

“What do you mean?”

“Reinforcements have arrived,” he said before mumbling something that sounded a lot like “thank fucking God.”

She pivoted on her barstool to take a look at what had caught Zach’s attention. However, it wasn’t a what. It was a who, three of them to be exact. Fallon was there, face clean of makeup and her hair thrown up into a messy bun, not because that was even close to fashionable but because she’d probably just got off shift in the emergency room. Gina stood next to her, wearing one of her signature pink dresses with the buttons not quite fastened correctly because more than likely she and Ford had been messing around before the friend 911 call came in. Tess, per usual, stood a little bit behind the other women with her hands clasped tight together in front of her, peeking out from behind long bangs that almost covered her eyes completely. Peopling in places where there were lots of people was definitely not Tess’s thing.

Lucy turned back to Zach. “How did you get them here?”

“I talked to your assistant Reva,” he said with a smirk that had probably gotten him in plenty of trouble in his life. “She has a thing for the whole tatted-up bad boy thing.”

She snorted. “If only she knew the truth about you.”

Zach, being Zach, ignored her comment because the man loved ignoring things he didn’t want to acknowledge and got off his stool. He was standing and reaching for his wallet in his back pocket by the time her girls got to them.

“Thanks for making the call,” Fallon said, looking at him like she wanted to double down on what the jerk Zach had punched had said but she was trying to keep it friendly as a favor to Lucy.

“No problem,” he said, tossing more bills than necessary on the bar. “Just make sure she gets home okay.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Lucy grumbled. “I can hear you.”

Zach just shrugged, tipped an imaginary hat at her, and walked out—his step definitely lighter now, probably because he no longer had to deal with Lucy. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t really want to deal with herself, either.

“Please tell me you were giving him advice about how to play so we actually make the playoffs next year,” Gina said.

“Amen,” Fallon added, her relief at finally being able to get that off her chest evident in how her shoulders sagged with relief.

Nope. They weren’t going to distract her from the topic at hand that easily. “Never mind Zach, what are you guys doing here?”

“Where else would we be?” Fallon asked.

And this was exactly why she hadn’t called them. “I don’t want to put you in a weird position. Frankie’s your brother.”

Fallon threw back her head and laughed. “You think I’ve never wanted to knock his head off before? Oh, the sweet imaginings of an only child.”

Lucy turned to Gina, needing to make her friend understand that the last thing she wanted was to put anyone in an awkward situation. “And he’s going to be your brother-in-law.”

Gina gave her a quick hug. “But you’re my best friend.”

Turning to Tess, Lucy gave it one last shot. “You don’t feel weird stuck in the middle?”

“Have we met?” Tess asked, her voice quiet like it always was in crowded places but still filled with warmth. “I feel weird all the time because I am weird. Seriously, this is my starting point for life.”

That closed Lucy’s trap. Looking around at her friends, who’d automatically formed a protective half circle around her barstool as if there were attackers coming at her from all sides, she let out the breath it felt like she’d been holding for sixty years. She had the most stubborn, pigheaded, fabulous people as her best friends in the whole wide world. And it wasn’t just the vodka that had her tearing up a little at the thought. “You guys are the fucking best.”