The problem was she wasn’t really sure what. Dax had been right on when he’d pointed out her alarming lack of friends who didn’t have to do with Mason. She supposed she could call the female half of one of their couple friends, but…meh. She really didn’t feel like dissecting the breakup. And, hey, why hadn’t any of those people reached out to her? She was the jiltee, after all.
Maybe she’d just woman up and call Cassie. At work parties, she and Cassie almost always ended up huddled in a corner talking animatedly about something. And Cassie seemed to have an active social life that didn’t always include Jack.
Well, why not? Even though she felt like a kindergartener going up to a strange child and saying, “Will you be my friend?” she fired off a text.
I just delivered a baby, and I could use a drink. What are you up to?
The reply came almost instantaneously.
What???? Already at Edward’s with some friends. Get over here. We’re sitting at the bar.
Half an hour later, Amy was bellied up to the bar with Cassie and her best friend Danny as well as two of the women from Rosemann, the advertising agency that shared the forty-ninth floor of the Lakefront Centre. She’d met the theatrical Danny a couple of times—he was funny and friendly. The women she didn’t know very well, but they had nodding relationships and would sometimes make small talk in the ladies’ room. But, hey, she was on Mission: Friends, and this bunch seemed as good as any.
“Last time I was at this bar, I’d just been left at the altar,” she said. It was the truth, and she felt like naming it. It had been only a week since that day, but it felt like she’d lived a lifetime in the interim. “And today I delivered Dax Harris’s sister’s baby,” she added.
“Holy crap,” Emma said, one of the advertising women. “I’m not sure I’m cool enough to be hanging out with you.”
Amy grinned. “Nah. Those are the two most dramatic things that have ever happened to me, and they happened within a week of each other.”
“Well, I think you might deserve a drink more than anyone else on this planet,” said Misty, the other woman.
“Yeah,” Danny said, sliding his own margarita toward Amy. “Drink up, and tell us all about this asshole.” He signaled the bartender for another round. “The ex-fiancé, I mean, not the baby.”
Several margaritas later, Amy and her new best friends, having dispensed with Mason rather quickly, had also settled the question of what neighborhood Misty should move to—Amy had signed up to take her condo-hunting. Then they had moved on to flipping through their Pinterest boards, tipsily making cases for certain decor decisions over others for Misty’s hypothetical new place.
Amy’s phone beeped an incoming text in the middle of a monologue from Danny on how black accent walls were the new black.
“Oh!” she exclaimed reflexively. “Look! Here’s the baby I told you about!” It was a picture from Dax along with a text.
Gloria Amy Harris, 6 lbs, 2ozs. Mom and baby at home and doing well.
“Oh my God, her middle name is Amy!” she shrieked. “Do you think that’s after me?”
Cassie snatched the phone out of her hand, and everyone crowded around to study the picture.
“No,” Danny said. “It must be after the other Amy who ushered her safely into the world in the midst of an emergency birth.”
“One thing I would like to know,” Cassie said, setting the phone down on the bar and narrowing her eyes, “is what were you doing at Dax’s house on the island on a Saturday? I thought you two hated each other. That’s one detail you left out of this whole story.”
“We were, ah, paddleboarding.”
“Is that a euphemism for something?” Emma cackled at her own joke.
“What?” Amy said, defensive. “We did kind of hate each other. But we’re friends now. Sort of.”
“I see,” said Cassie, who was looking at Amy’s phone again. “That’s why he wants you to come for family dinner tomorrow night? Meet the parents and all?”
A stupid little thrill ran through Amy as she snatched her phone back. There was indeed a text inviting her to dinner at Kat’s place tomorrow.
Another text arrived. “They just want to thank me,” she said, holding up the phone to show them a text that said as much. “His sister is super…persuasive.” She shrugged and dropped her phone into her bag. She’d reply later. “Anyway, I’m not going.”
“Why not?” Cassie protested, with more vehemence than seemed appropriate for the situation.