“Oh, let me guess,” Samiah said. “He forgot his wallet at work?”

“And the Apple Pay on his phone was acting up,” London said with a nod. “He isn’t very creative, is he?”

Two women at a nearby table laughed out loud. One of them held up a phone to snap a picture.

Great.

Samiah turned back to Craig. “You are a horrible person, and your jokes are corny. I wish nothing but the worst for you.”

A waiter arrived with a black paper bag and handed it to London. She stood and motioned for Samiah and Taylor to walk ahead of her.

“Don’t I get a chance to explain?” Craig called.

“No!” the three women said in unison as they marched out of the restaurant without a backward glance.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Samiah squinted against the sunlight slicing across her face through her living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Grimacing, she expended a supreme amount of effort to open her left eye. She quickly shut it. A dull thud repeatedly beat against the back of her skull, reverberating around her brain like a Ping-Pong ball in slow motion.

“Is there coffee?” a strange voice croaked. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”

Samiah bolted upright and twisted around on the sofa. London Kelley stood next to the eight-foot soapstone island that separated her kitchen from the living room. Make that Doctor London Kelley, as Samiah had discovered last night.

“I’ll take kombucha if you have any,” came a muffled voice from somewhere underneath the mound of pillows on the living room floor. Taylor Powell moaned before leveling herself up on her elbows. “You see this headache right here? This is why I don’t drink alcohol.” She straightened. “I gotta pee,” she said before scrambling up from the floor and racing toward the bathroom.

Exhausted and hungover, Samiah still had the presence of mind to acknowledge that she should be concerned about waking up to find two strangers in her home. Strangers who were now familiar enough with her home to utilize the kitchen and bathroom without her help or permission.

Yet in the few short hours since she’d met them, Taylor and London no longer felt like strangers. Being conned by the same lowlife accelerated the sisterhood-development process.

Samiah placed her bare feet on the cool hardwood floors and rested her elbows on her thighs, covering her face with her hands. She still wore her jeans from last night, but at some point had changed into her favorite blue-and-gray Rice University T-shirt.

“Hey, chica? Coffee?” London called again.

“There are coffee pods in the cabinet above the Keurig.” She turned to Taylor, who had just resumed her spot on the floor. “Sorry, no kombucha. I’ve seen it, but I’m too chicken to try it.”

“Chicken? After the way you went after Craig last night? Woman, there is nothing chicken about you. You are badass.”