“Recently separated. Again, not exactly single,” Jessica said as Sarah led the way to the outdoor seating on the side of the house. She wasn’t sure if the deck could hold all three of them without another hole-in-the-floor fiasco. The sun was getting low in the sky and the furniture on the patio was positioned around a stone fire pit. Despite needing a fresh coat of paint, the Adirondack chairs were in surprisingly good shape. Given what she had seen so far of the rest of the furniture in the B&B, the patio seemed the best option for a visit with her besties.

“You’d date a sixty-two-year-old man if he was?” Whitney asked Jessica, hanging her purse over the back of a chair and removing her gray suit jacket.

“Hey, Bert is a sweetheart, and he always makes sure I have a cold bottled water at each game. That’s about the most attention I’ve had from a man in a long time.”

“That’s just desperation talking.” Whitney rolled the sleeves of her silk blouse and undid the top button. Her golden, sun-kissed skin was enviable.

“Hey, if I date Bert, I could get Sarah a discount on paint,” Jessica said.

Sarah laughed. “Who said I was doing any painting? A sledgehammer might be useful, though.”

The familiar banter helped remind her of how much she’d really missed them. They kept in touch with weekly FaceTime chats, but when they were together like this, she realized how that barely seemed enough. They had all gone to school together since kindergarten, but they really became friends in the fifth grade when Jessica had started a “single child club.” The three of them had bonded over their joint disappointment that their parents hadn’t given them the courtesy of a sibling.

Jessica and Whitney still lived in Blue Moon Bay and saw each other frequently. Sarah struggled with feeling like the third wheel or the one left out, but she had her busy job in the city as a consolation. Her friends understood her lack of availability.

“Wineglasses?” Jessica asked, taking a bottle of red from her oversize purse, followed by a box of cream-filled pastries from her bakery, Delicious Delicacies.

Sarah’s mouth watered, and she wasn’t sure which she craved more—the alcohol or the carbs. “I’ll see what we have. Save me something covered in chocolate,” she said, hurrying inside. She grabbed three of the largest glasses she could find, washed them quickly, and carried them outside.

Whitney had the bottle open already. “So, how bad is it?” she asked as she poured.

Should she mention her near-death experience? Probably best to keep the embarrassing story to herself. Her friends already had plenty of adventure stories with her as the leading role of klutz. She had spent years trying to rewrite that narrative, plus they would worry about her. Best to keep that story for another time.