“Congrats, guys,” Maeve McGinnis said as she came up beside Anna. “Your engagement had everyone buzzing last week, and now this… Heads will be exploding, no doubt.” I couldn’t detect anything but friendliness in her words, even though I was searching for more.

“They’ll get over it,” Holden said good-naturedly. “Thanks, Maeve. Hey, Emerson, Olivia.”

“Hey, you two. Congratulations,” Emerson said.

“Yes, congrats,” Olivia added. “And, Chloe, welcome back to town.” She moved down the table toward my parents, and I was more than a little stunned when Olivia bent down and hugged Shirley and then reached across my dad to grasp my mom’s forearm affectionately. “How are you ladies doing? Patty, are you coming to knitting group this week? I’m dying to see the sweater.”

The other three girls kept talking to Holden and Hayden and probably me too, but my attention was stuck at the end of the table. Olivia London was friendly with my mom?

It didn’t equate.

I guess a lot really could happen in sixteen years. I never in a thousand years would’ve thought my mom would be on a first-name basis with one of the most popular girls in my graduating class. Olivia had just said more to my mother than she ever had to me. Of course, now that I thought about it, that was probably by my design, as I hadn’t left myself open to interactions back then.

“Chloe, we do girls’ night on Saturdays,” Anna said, jolting my attention back to the conversation at my table. “We’d love to have you join us.”

“Oh.” My brain froze momentarily as I shifted into fight-or-flight mode. Holden squeezed my thigh under the table, which jolted me out of it enough to realize the three had their eyes on me, waiting for a response. “I, um… This coming Saturday?”

“Yep. It’s Maeve’s birthday so we’ll be celebrating,” Anna said.

“The more the merrier,” Maeve added.

“I haven’t thought—”

“You should go,” Holden said, his hand still supportively on my leg. “I’ll be working as usual.”

Right. Because he worked most Saturday nights. I knew this, but to be honest, whether Holden worked or not hadn’t even crossed my mind yet. I was too stuck on the girls’ night invitation itself, the mini panic it induced.

With so many eyes on me—not just Anna’s, Maeve’s, Emerson’s and now Olivia’s but also Hayden’s and Zane’s and…

I blew out a shaky breath and hoped no one could hear the shakes over the restaurant din. “Sure,” I finally said, hoping I hadn’t waited so long to respond that it was obvious I was terrified of a girls’ night invite. “I could do that.” I took a couple of seconds to swallow down some anxiety and then added, “Thank you,” and forced a smile back on my face.