“Wait! Mary. Shit. I didn’t mean—That was a terrible thing to—Please wait.” Two heavy fingers tapped roughly at her shoulder. He appeared at her side, palms out, fingers looped around his beer bottle. “I’m an idiot.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a complete sinkhole for happiness? Where good feelings go to die? Desperate?” she quoted him with a scowl. “Being thirty-seven and flirting with a good-looking man at a party does not make me desperate. Wanting to meet someone does not make me desperate. Jeez! You’re like the human manifestation of the sad trombone sound.”

John scowled at her, his bright eyes shadowed by the pull of his brow. “To answer your question, yes, people have told me that before. Never quite so...creatively. But yes, I’ve been known to bring the mood down.”

“It’s annoying.” She scowled at him.

“Yes,” he agreed immediately. “It really is.”

“Mary,” Estrella said, huffing and puffing a little, as if she’d stridden quickly across the party. “Where’d Samuel go?”

“Ma,” John cut in. “Sammy? Really? You’re setting her up with Sammy? He’s not even divorced yet.”

If looks could have turned someone back into a nine-year-old boy and sent him to his room, the mug that Estrella was shooting at John certainly would have done it. “Samuel is a good boy. But fine. He wasn’t your taste, Mary? There’s more. Come with me.”

Estrella tugged on Mary’s elbow.

John got in his mother’s way. “Who’s next in the lineup?”

“None of your business.”

John followed his mother’s gaze and made a sound of disbelief. “Jonah? Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ma!”

“Estrella, I’m going to run to the bathroom. Be right back!” Mary tried to shoot both of them a bright smile, but she had the feeling that it might have come off a little canned. She appreciated what Estrella was doing, she really did. But setups were awkward enough without them being loud and confrontational and causing half of a block party to crane their heads to stare at the new girl.

Mary ducked back into Estrella’s house, found the bathroom and washed her hands. She’d go back out there, get something to eat, chat with some people and head home. She didn’t have to overthink this.

She walked back through the house and found John sitting on the front steps to his mother’s house, passing his beer back and forth between his hands.

“Hi.”

He looked up at her, rising quickly. Mary realized that due to some optical illusion, sans his perfectly knotted tie, he looked both taller and wider. Like his open collar and the triangle of gold skin it revealed had allowed his body to stretch out to its true size. “My mother has terrible taste in men.”

Mary couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m starting to learn that.”