Carly’s spirits fell from her chest to the pavement. How was that possible? She took out her phone and called Lauren, something she now felt like an idiot for not doing over the last few days. No answer, which made sense. She was likely on a flight. She looked to the doorman again, whose name tag read Mike. “So what am I supposed to do now?” She had no idea why she thought Mike would know.

“I always find a nice breakfast cheers me up. I’m a flapjacks guy.”

That’s the sentence her brain decided to play for her over and over as she returned home, directionless. I’m a flapjacks guy. I’m a flapjacks guy. It was not at all helpful, but maybe what she deserved, to be haunted by one of the lowest moments in her life, reminded of it over and over. She poured a cup of coffee she didn’t have the stomach to drink. I’m a flapjacks guy.

She sat outside next to her pool without a coat because she needed to let the cold pelt her in punishment. The empty hotel room had been a wake-up call. She saw the parallel now between her behavior over the last few years and her behavior toward Lauren. She seemed to think everyone would wait for her. Lauren most certainly had not, and why should she have? She’d never let Carly get away with her bullshit. It was one of the many things that was so great about her.

Carly called again. Nothing. She walked through each room in her home, alone with her thoughts that she sorted through one at a time. She needed a sounding board, and she knew the one person who would give it to her straight.

“How’s your day looking?” she asked, when Fallon picked up her call.

“Pretty slow around here. I was thinking of knocking off early.”

“Want to go out for a cocktail and knock me around a little? I’ve earned it.”

“Hmm,” Fallon said. “A cocktail and beatdown could make for a nice afternoon. Where should we gather?”

“Somewhere low key where people won’t take our photo.”

“So the Chateau Marmont, then?”

“Very funny. What about that place The Varnish? Reminds me of a speakeasy, and that dim lighting might be what I need to blend.”

“Done. See you in an hour?”

“Prepare yourself for sad and guilty.”

“Good Lord.”

“I know.”

Ninety minutes later, and Carly had a whiskey sour and Fallon sipped a candy-apple martini that came with a chili rim. “So what are we going to do about it?” Fallon asked.

“Do about which of the many issues?” She had laid out everything that had gone wrong as soon as they’d arrived, sparing no detail.

“Well, I think you have a lot of things going on. Some old. Some new.”