With a laugh, Tess and Ivy embraced, and I watched with a smile and a sigh, thankful Ivy had her little family here. Another stroke of envy brushed my heart—I had no friends like this, no family away from family. Our parents had moved to Phoenix when they retired but came when they could. New York was my home, but while Ivy had always had the Bennets and the shop and now Dean, I only had her. I’d had no real time for friends, not with the demands of my job, and while I’d adopted Brock’s friends—a collection of doctors, lawyers, and otherwise accomplished professionals—they were proximity friends, nothing more. They weren’t the people you texted in the middle of the night or watched old movies with in your pajamas. They were the sort who showed up to dinner and performed, hiding their true nature with predatory skill.

Maybe that was where I’d sharpened my own mask. Maybe it was just the nature of Brock’s circle or the circle of the wealthy. But I longed for something genuine, longed for it in a way I never had before. Not until I’d lost the man I thought I wanted, not realizing how wrong I’d been about what was and wasn’t good for me.

I caught a glimpse of it then, a whole other life, like the fluttering of a curtain behind which another world existed. One where my smiles were effortless, where there was no pretense. Only the simple honesty of connection.

It was alien, that world.

It was a dream, that world.

And then the curtain stilled, shutting off the vision, leaving me only with myself and the ghostly glimmer of what I’d seen.

Ivy hooked her arm in mine. “I’m gonna use so much garlic salt, no one will come within five feet of me for a week.”

With a laugh, I leaned into her, waving at Tess, then Kash, all dark hair and uncomplicated smiles. And I smiled back, that glimmer flickering again like a shard of glass in the sun.

Ivy tugged me toward the front, chattering about pizza with enough gusto that by the time we reached the door to the shop, my stomach growled like a wild animal. I pressed a hand to it, chuckling.

“God, don’t you eat?” she said, pulling her coat as tight as she could around her belly. The seams didn’t come close to touching.

“Of course I eat.”

“It’s just that you’re so skinny.”

“You just say that because you’re so not skinny.”

“Hey!” She pinched my arm, eliciting a yelp. “That’s two fat jokes in five minutes. Not cool.”

“Well, you skinny shamed me, so we’re even.”

She rolled her eyes.

“By the way, I forgot to thank you for telling Kash all my business. What the hell, Ivy?”