“Oh, great.” Jules rolled her eyes while she opened the door. “Now he tells me.”

Simon’s wry chuckle followed her.

* * *

That night, as Jules flopped onto her sofa with her phone, she found her mother had more to say about Vivian’s divorce than Simon had. Specifically, she had a lot to say about how it should serve as a warning to Jules: “Remember what happened with Aaron. Make sure you don’t end up like your boss.”

That wasn’t fair. Aaron had dumped Jules last year after being unreasonable and insisting she work an eight-hour day and be off every weekend, which, come on!

She had tried to laugh around the cold pit that opened up in her stomach. “Mom! I’m nothing like Vivian. I have a life outside of work.”

“Really?” her mom said tartly. “Then maybe sometime you’ll talk to us about something other than your job.”

Ouch.

When she disconnected, Jules looked down at her phone’s screen until it went dark. Then she sighed, got off the sofa, and headed for the kitchen to get water.

She loved her Lower East Side apartment. Jules was luckier than lucky—her maternal grandparents had purchased the one-bedroom when they were young and when the area was less than savory. It had stayed in the family, and now Jules had six hundred square feet all to herself on the condition that she paid her parents for the utilities and half the property taxes.

Her parents had upgraded the place about ten years ago. The worn carpet had been pulled up and the original hardwood floors refinished. Nothing fancy, but it was perfect for a generation of renters who’d been here before Jules had moved in.

Since Aaron had left and taken his dirty laundry and band posters with him, Jules had been able to redecorate. She’d watched YouTube tutorials on painting and spent hours priming and taping and cursing. Now she had an accent wall covered by squares and triangles in alternating colors of aqua, salmon, and yellow. It looked pretty cool. Vivian never had to know about the yellow part.

An assistant’s salary didn’t stretch far, especially when she had to prioritize clothes, so most of Jules’s furniture was family hand-me-downs. Nevertheless, she’d splurged on a contemporary coffee table and a Moroccan-style rug. She’d made her own curtains. She was satisfied with the place for now.

Jules sat at the kitchen table and looked moodily at her water glass. In spite of herself, her thoughts wandered back to her conversation with her mom. Okay, maybe Jules wasn’t a relationship expert. She still had to be better than Vivian, who had nobody to blame but herself.