“Helene’s wedding is this weekend and I heard the top-secret location is Sam Pleasant’s ranch. Well, his family’s ranch,” Webber said. A knot gripped Amanda’s belly. She knew the wedding was going to be held at Big Rock Ranch in Charming, California, about two and a half hours away from the city if traffic was on your side. She’d heard in passing that it was Black-owned, but she had no clue the ranch was owned by Sam’s family.

She almost started beating herself up for not researching the ranch more, but why would she? All Helene needed her to do was show up and be emotionally supportive and happy for the lovely couple. She wasn’t working and she wasn’t in the wedding party. What wedding guest researched the owners of any venue? And what person researched a person’s family before they had a spontaneous one-night stand with them? She swallowed and pretended to focus back on her phone.

“Not so top-secret then,” Tally laughed in reply.

“It’ll all be in People next week. Who cares?” Dru said with her own chuckle.

“I care,” Tally replied. “I want to see what she’s wearing.”

“Enough about her though,” Webber said. “Back to Sam Pleasant. What did he smell like?”

Laughter came sputtering out of Tally. Amanda would have laughed quietly too if she didn’t already know the answer to that question. Amanda was currently in hell.

“Sorry, hun. I didn’t smell him, but he just—ugh—godly up close. Great skin.”

“I’m so glad he won,” Patience said. “That movie was brutal, but he acted his ass off. He deserves that award.”

“I may have slid into his DMs the other day,” Dru announced. Amanda looked up then. Luckily, Dru was looking in the mirror as Patience removed the foam latex ridges from her cheek. She didn’t catch the wide-eyed horror on Amanda’s face.

“What did he say?” Tally asked. “What did you say?”

“I just told him he should ask me out for a drink some time. He hasn’t responded yet, but I’m sure his DMs are flooded. He pretty much announced that he was single and looking in that GQ article. I’ll give him some time to sort through the riff-raff before he gets back to me.” She winked at Webber in the mirror before she looked back down at her phone. Amanda pretended to stretch her neck and let out a quiet, but deep breath. Dru said a lot of things. Maybe she was just lying about messaging Sam. Not that it mattered. Sam was a nonentity in Amanda’s life.