Page 15 of Say Yes to the Death

“Screw the flowers. Roses, lilies, they all die the next day,” Nicole said, elbowing her way into the foyer and dropping a bag of junk food on the counter.

“Actually, you can donate your flowers to nursing homes after the—oof,” Claire said as Nicole swooped in and hugged her tightly.

“Plus, we all wanted to be with you, considering what today could have been.” Nicole pulled back and held Claire at arm’s length, looking her up and down as though she were searching for physical scars from the trauma of her cancelled wedding.

“I heard you could use some legal advice,” Kyle interrupted, reaching for the manila envelope Claire had tossed onto her table. His words slurred slightly. All the papers promptly fell out onto the floor.

Nicole laughed as she ducked and gathered them into a neat pile. Kyle settled into a chair at the dining room table and pored over the documents.

“Sorry—Kyle had a rough day between work and not giving a shit about flowers, so I made him a mega margarita before we came. He’s a little tipsy,” she whispered in Claire’s ear.

Sawyer had retreated to her dining room window, where he was setting up a small, complicated-looking device. As her friends bustled around making snacks and pulling glasses from her cabinet, warmth filled her from head to toe. When so much of her world was changing, it was a relief to be surrounded by friends. Mindy gripped the neck of a bottle of sparkling wine, wiggling the cork with her thumbs and grunting. A vein stood out on her otherwise flawless forehead.

The cork rocketed out of the bottle and smacked off the ceiling. Whoops. Hopefully, her landlord wouldn’t notice the dent at his next visit.

Mindy poured the champagne into four glasses and handed them out. The crisp bubbles hit Claire’s tongue like Pop Rocks. Kyle drank his in one gulp and banged the glass onto the table. He walked over to Sawyer, who had moved back to the front door, and started a conversation about football. Apparently, his sage legal advice would have to wait.

“So, what else is going on? I can tell it’s not just the lawsuit that’s bothering you.” Nicole mopped up Kyle’s splattered champagne and rinsed the rag in the sink.

Claire frowned and leaned against the kitchen island. “I met Luke’s mom today.”

Nicole whirled. Water dribbled onto the hardwood floor. “Today? I thought she was coming tomorrow?”

Claire retold the harrowing tale of her encounter with Rachel. “And that’s not even the worst part.”

Nicole’s eyes were wide. “What could possibly be worse than assaulting your potential future mother-in-law with a pool skimmer while topless?”

It was definitely too early to label Rachel a possible future mother-in-law. Yikes, what a nightmare that would be. “He didn’t tell her that we’re…whatever we are. She didn’t know who I was.”

Nicole’s mouth fell open. “Oh my god. He didn’t tell her anything about you? Not even the part where he knew the girl who got kidnapped and almost murdered? Sorry,” she apologized quickly at the look Claire gave her.

“I guess not. I didn’t stick around long enough to figure out. He’s called me like fifteen times since I left,” Claire said, sliding her phone across the island. “I guess I should be glad I’m not the only person he withholds information from.”

Nicole flipped the phone over and twisted a strand of her thick brown hair between her fingers, her signature stressed-out move.

“Kyle always said Luke’s family was never very touchy-feely,” she said in a hushed tone. “Maybe he just didn’t know how to bring it up to her. What was she like?”

“Like a dildo made out of ice. She was stamping her Prada shoes on the concrete when I woke up and then she proceeded to judge me.”

“To be fair, you were topless.”

“It was an accident,” Claire said, picking up her glass of wine and downing half of it in one swallow. First impressions were so important. When she’d first met Jason’s mom, she’d worn a perfectly pressed blouse and had a hostess gift in one hand and a homemade dessert in the other. How had her first encounter with Luke’s mom gone so horribly wrong?

Nicole stopped twisting her hair. “What are you going to do about dinner tomorrow?”

“Drink a lot of wine and say as little as possible.” What were the odds that a combination of carefully selected wine and an overly elaborate dinner menu would erase the memory from Rachel’s mind? Maybe the situation was still salvageable.

There was another knock at Claire’s front door, and everyone froze. Kyle held a karate pose. Sawyer glanced through the peephole and turned to Claire.

“It’s Luke,” he said to her with a question in his eyes.

Ugh. “It’s fine. Let him in.”

It would be easier to yell at him if they were in the same room. Sawyer cracked the door open.

Luke, looking slightly disheveled and alarmed, burst through the front door, carrying pizza boxes. “Claire,” he said, zeroing in on her. “We need to talk.”

Nicole picked up her champagne flute and walked straight out of the kitchen into the living room. She started a loud conversation with Kyle and Mindy about cloth napkins. Sawyer walked back into the hallway and fiddled with the window between the bedroom and bathroom. Hopefully, he was planting a motion sensor and not rigging it so he could sneak in and murder her later.

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