Shot. To. The. Heart.

Another stitch.

“Yes, I would thank her, and she’d roll her eyes, tell me to shut up, and toss the remote at me and tell me it was my turn to pick the TV show we were going to watch even if it was her turn. And if I had a particularly bad day she’d even let me watch a cooking show even though she knew I had no intentions of learning how to cook.”

“That’s a damn good friend right there,” Brooklyn mumbled, then looked at Letty. “Don’t get any ideas. You know I love you, but you’d have to lose a toe or be in a full body cast before I watched a cooking show with you.”

Letty ignored Brooklyn and moved the conversation to a new topic.

“Now that we’ve come to an agreement your fake friends were bitches, I have more questions.”

“Oh, boy,” Sadie grumbled and squeezed my hand. “Brace, girl, I know that look.”

Another stitch.

Apparently, Letty didn’t need my encouragement to ask what was on her mind and she took no offense at Sadie’s comment because she launched right in.

“So, you met Asher while you were both working undercover at a sex club, and you thought his name was Adam?”

After Sadie’s dire warning I wasn’t expecting Letty to lob such an innocuous question my way.

“Yeah.”

“And in this sex club, there were people having sex?”

Funny how twenty-four hours ago I didn’t want to talk about the club but now it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I knew I’d never work there again or if I felt comfortable with the girls, or if instinctively I knew they wouldn’t judge me. But whatever the reason, I was no longer embarrassed. Actually, I was proud of my tenure as the event coordinator at Club Joi. Proud because I was the kind of friend worthy of Elise, worthy of Letty, Brooklyn, and Sadie.

“Yes, Letty. There were lots of people having sex and watching sex and inviting people to watch and join.”

“Wow. I’ve never been to a sex club,” Brooklyn informed me.

“In my opinion, you’re not missing much. Unless that’s your kink, then you should go.”

“Oh my God!” Letty chortled. “Can you imagine the look on Dulles’s face if you told him you wanted to go to a sex club?”

“Yes, Lets, I can imagine,” Brooklyn returned. “It’s the same face River would give you.”

Dulles?

“Wait, who’s Dulles?”

“Letty’s nickname for Rhode,” Sadie filled me in. “It’s a long story but Rhode and Brooklyn had a hot, steamy one-night stand. Brooklyn was channeling a sassy book heroine and decided not to exchange names with Rhode. Which proved to be a huge error when a few months later she wound up pregnant. Since Brooklyn didn’t know Rhode’s name and the baby-making happened at a hotel in D.C. next to the airport, Letty called him Dulles. And now she calls him that just to annoy him.”