‘Do you want me to call him for you? I’ll call him.’

Serena picked up the phone from the table, and Maggie grabbed it out of her hand. ‘I’m not ready,’ she insisted.

‘I think you’re just chicken.’

‘Cluck,’ Maggie said. The bartender brought her another Starfire, and she stared at it with a frown on her face. She knew Serena was right. She’d been drowning her sorrows in a lot of alcohol.

‘So why are you here?’ Maggie asked.

‘I miss our talks,’ Serena said.

‘Does Stride know you were coming to see me?’

‘No. I didn’t want to get his hopes up, in case we wound up in a girl fight.’

‘You’d have to call Guppo first. He’d pay good money to see that.’

Serena smiled. ‘Did Jonny tell you about Cat and the baby?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘We steer clear of the subject of Cat. Is everything okay?’

‘Fine, but Cat’s thinking of giving him up now. Adoption.’

‘Sounds like a better plan to me.’

‘She asked if Jonny and I wanted to adopt him.’

‘You mean, so she can be around for the good stuff, while you guys do all the work?’

‘Wow, you’re cynical,’ Serena said, ‘but it doesn’t matter. We’re going to tell her no.’

‘Do you both feel that way?’

‘Yeah, we do. I can’t have kids, so I’ve never really thought about it. Jonny thinks it’s a younger man’s game. So we’re in sync on this.’

‘And yet here you are talking to me,’ Maggie said, with a pointed look in her eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’

Maggie didn’t miss much. For all of the troubles between them, they knew each other like sisters. And neither one was shy about telling the other when she was making a fool of herself.

‘Honestly, I worry that Jonny saying no to kids is really his way of saying no to me,’ Serena admitted. ‘Like he and I aren’t going anywhere.’

Maggie shook her head. She gave in and drank a healthy dose of Starfire. ‘For such a hot chick, you’re way too insecure.’

‘Look who’s talking.’

‘Insecure? Me? No, just realistic.’

Serena tapped Maggie’s phone again. ‘Troy.’

‘Fine, okay, you win. I will call him.’ Maggie dialed a number on the phone using her index finger and got Troy Grange’s voice mail on speakerphone. ‘Troy, it’s Maggie. I’m in. You, me, and the girls. Deep fried stuff on a stick next week.’

She hung up.

‘Satisfied?’ she asked Serena.

‘You’ll thank me.’

‘Maybe. Now quit reading anything into Stride saying no to Cat. It has nothing to do with how he feels about you.’

‘What about you?’ Serena asked.

‘What about me?’

‘You wanted to adopt a baby last year after Eric got shot. You were all in. You were going to do whatever it took to find one.’