“Bad suggestion. I’d forgotten about Avery, although you could always take her class and launch an attack while she is in downward dog. Very difficult to defend yourself in that position. It really doesn’t matter what you do. Learn to pole dance. Take up skydiving. Anything. I’m not supposed to fix your problems, remember?” Peggy patted her hand. “I’m supposed to support you while you fix them, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Maybe she should take up yoga, Connie thought, then she could show up at one of Avery’s classes and tell her exactly what she thought of her.

Chapter 5Milly

Zoe settled into the passenger seat and looked at her expectantly. “How was the date? Was it fun? Did you like him? Tell me everything.”

Milly felt a stab of guilt. “Zoe—”

“I’m okay with it, honestly. You deserve to be happy. Can I meet him?” She broke off, uncertain. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I get it.”

How had she ever got herself in this tangled mess? She tried never to tell lies, and she hadn’t lied. She just hadn’t told them what she was doing, and when they’d made assumptions she hadn’t corrected them because she knew that if she’d corrected them, then they would have wanted to know the truth, and that would have meant violating her promise to Nicole.

Also she didn’t want to talk about Nicole. She’d told no one that her friend had ghosted her. It had been too painful, so she’d kept that to herself. It felt like another failure on her part. She imagined people looking at her and thinking First her husband, and then her best friend.

It was at times like this she wished she wasn’t so close to her family. Normally she was grateful for it, but it made things complicated when you had something to hide.

“Zoe, there’s something I need to tell you, and I need to tell you before you get home tonight.”

“What? Is he at the boathouse? Are you about to tell me that your date went so well he’s moving in?”

“No! Why would you—” Milly took a deep breath. “It wasn’t a date, Zoe. I never said it was a date.”

“But Gramma and Nanna Peg said—”

“I know what they said. When I told them I needed you to stay with them for the night, they jumped to conclusions, and I didn’t correct them.”

“Why not?”