Page 13 of The Spy Ring

FIVE

Tiffany

Early as usual.

Every Thursday my friends and I meet for drinks at a bar. We’ve been doing this for about six months now. We call it SWIM Meet, which is an acronym for Smart Women with Idiot Men.

It was started by Morgana Drake, who had a thing for her boss and my good friend, Henrik Payne. And her best friend, Aria Dixon, joined along with Morgana’s coworker at the time, Evaleen Bechmann.

They all had troubles with the men they were dating, hence the name of the group. I was the odd one out because I wasn’t dating anyone or hadn’t since college, over a decade ago.

I started coming around the time of David’s surgery. It gave me a break from the ups and downs of wondering if he would come out of the coma he was in for a week after surgery, and the stress of not knowing if the surgery even worked.

It was a low time in my life, and these ladies helped me make it through by letting me talk, cry, and get a little tipsy from time to time.

Now, it gave me something to do that was just for me. Up until earlier this year, my life consisted of working on graphic design projects for clients and taking care of my son. Running to David’s doctor appointments, specialists, therapists, bathing him, feeding him, making sure the medical equipment arrived on time, and countless other tasks.

I never had time to go to the movies with friends or do all the things single women at thirty-two do. Now that David had some independence from the operation, everything had changed.

“Here’s your whiskey sour.” The waiter placed it on the round wooden table in front of me.

“Thank you,” I said.

It’s funny, but I never used to drink whiskey sours. For some reason over the past month, whenever I came to SWIM Meet, I craved one.

“What a day.” Morgana appeared as I was taking a sip of my drink.

She threw her purse on the table, removed her jewel green blazer, and plopped down on the dark leather booth seat opposite me. Her fiery hair pulled back into a long ponytail.

“Busy at work?” I asked.

“You’d think Armageddon was about to happen if we changed the color of our logo from blue to green.” Morgana pulled at the band holding her ponytail in place and shook out her hair.

“Can Henrik help? I know he used to do that.” I smiled, trying my best to help my stressed friend.

“Ugh, no. As much as I would love to be able to ask for his opinion from time to time, when I do ask for help, he proceeds to explain the entire history of Mimir and how marketing the past thirty years has changed drastically. If I wanted lectures, I would go to college again.”

Morgana lifted her arm, signaling our waiter and placed her drink order when he arrived.

“I heard from Aria and Evaleen. They are both running a little late.”

“I bet they are.” Morgana smirked.

“What does that mean?”

“Aria works from home—painting—and Evaleen now spends her day writing from home. I know for a fact that Edgar left early today. I think they are being held back, so to speak, by their men.”

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and tried to cover it up by tilting my head forward to drink through the little red straw in my glass. Some tendrils that fell out of my braid fluttered around my face, shielding the embarrassing blush.

Despite knowing these women for six months, I still felt like an outsider. Morgana’s wedding was coming up in just over a month, and I had a terrible feeling I was going to be the single woman at the reception that every relative and friend in attendance would try to set up with any “perfect man” they knew.

Maybe I could hire an escort for the wedding, just to ward them off. I’ve heard some crazy stuff about Morgana’s family, especially her grandmother. Best to be prepared with a male shield.

The waiter arrived with Morgana’s white wine.

“I wanted to discuss with you about David having a part in the wedding,” Morgana said as she placed her glass down.

“Of course. I think he would love that.” I smiled but wondered what she would expect of him.

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