Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Praise for Abbi Waxman and her novels
- Berkley Titles by Abbi Waxman
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Summer
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- Fall
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Readers Guide
- Questions for Discussion
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Maggie shook her head, amazed at her self-restraint. “No, but can I ask why you called her in the first place? Or did she call you?”
Asher blushed. “I called her. I don’t know.” He did know. He’d gone upstairs the night before, after Polly had turned him down, and almost without thinking picked up his phone and texted Maddie’s old number. He’d half expected it wouldn’t work anymore, but when he’d woken up this morning, she’d sent a response. She was tickled to hear from him, she said. That was the word she’d used, as if their relationship were an adorable friendship, rather than the hideous breakup and four years of silence it actually was. They’d texted back and forth for a while, obliquely ascertaining each other’s romantic status, ferreting for signs of revivable interest. Finally he’d asked her if she wanted to come over for dinner.
“Your mother will shoot me on sight,” she’d replied, with a laughing face emoji, followed by the gun emoji.
“Nah,” he’d lied. “She’s over it.” (And she didn’t own a gun.)
Now he looked at his mother with relief. “You promise you’re going to be nice?”
Maggie levered herself up from the table and picked up her coffee. “I’ll try, but if she puts one foot wrong . . .”
“You’ll bite it off?”
Maggie grinned at her son. “And spit the toenails back in her face, machine gun–style.”
Asher laughed. “That would almost be worth seeing.”
Maggie shook her head and headed upstairs.
THIRTY-TWO
Nick showed up a little before six, bringing an excellent bottle of wine, a bouquet of flowers, and a box of mini-cupcakes from the hippest, happening-est bakery in town.
Polly was particularly charmed by the tiny cupcakes and made it clear.
“How did you even know about Cat’s Tongue?” she asked, licking her fingertips after sampling a peanut butter and honey cupcake. “They only opened last month, the buzz has barely left the neighborhood, let alone spread to the other coast.”
Nick was blasé, offering the box a second time and smiling encouragement. “The Internet, of course. When I go somewhere new, I like to do my research.” He looked reproachfully at Laura. “I was hoping to take my best girl out to dinner, I made reservations at Cream of the Crop.”
Polly literally clapped her hands together, which was unfortunate as she’d just taken a raspberry-studded cupcake. “You’re kidding!” She whirled around to Laura. “Dude, you should one hundred percent go! It’s a vegetarian paradise.”
Laura smiled politely but shook her head.
“You can take me if you like,” said Polly, wiping crumbs and frosting from her hands and shamelessly turning to Nick again. “I’m not vegetarian, but I’m prepared to make an exception.”