Page 30 of Happy Trails & Honey Pots

Everyone seemed to think there was something going on between myself and Miles Ford, which was absurd. He was a movie star. A sex symbol. I was a single mom who lived in scrubs from a small town, and this wasn’t a Lifetime Christmas movie.

“Your girls are in the back.” Marion tilted her head as she handed me my vanilla matcha with cold foam.

“Thanks.” I tapped my card against the reader.

Typically, when I came and grabbed brunch with the ladies, we sat outside on the patio in the bistro-style table and chairs, but today, we opted for indoor seating because although it was a clear, beautiful day, the temperature was in the low sixties.

“Hey! Sorry I’m late,” I apologized as I took my place on the bench beside Ashley. She grabbed her purse and placed it on the other side of her lap to make room.

“No worries; Ashley was just telling us about her new job.” Daphne held her hand out to Ashley, giving her the floor.

“Oh, did you get it?” I remembered her saying that she was applying for something on the night the girls took me out after it was announced that Miles was going to be playing Austin. That felt like so long ago. So much has happened since then.

“I have another interview next week. It’s not exactly in my field. It’s in fashion…sort of.”

Ashley had recently graduated from college with a degree in art. I wasn’t completely sure what one did with an art degree. She taught an art program for kids; she loved it, and they loved her. I just assumed she’d go on to teach or work in a gallery or something.

“I didn’t know you were interested in fashion,” Nadia voiced what I’d just thought. “I mean, I know you’re always wearing incredible clothes. You are definitely the ‘Carrie’ of our group. But I didn’t know that you wanted to make that your career.”

“If she’s the Carrie, who am I?” I asked, wondering when we’d handed out ourSex in the Citycharacters and why I wasn’t consulted.

“Charlotte,” all three women replied without any hesitation.

I pointed to Nadia. “So that makes you?—”

“Samantha,” they all parroted.

“Obviously,” Nadia added.

“And I’m Miranda,” Daphne held up her hand. “It’s sort of by default, but I’m not mad at it.”

“When was this decided?” I asked.

“We’ve never talked about it before,” Nadia explained as she sipped her vanilla matcha espresso double shot fusion. “It just goes without saying.”

“Oh, okay.” I guess she was right. I hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense. I turned back to Ashley. “Sorry, go ahead. Your new job is in fashion, not art?”

“Sort of. It’s hard to explain, anyway, I love art, and for a while, I thought that I was going to teach, which I still plan on doing. However, an opportunity came up to apply for a…I guess you could call it a paid internship, and I decided to apply. It’s not what I expected, but I will say it is bringing out the competitive side of me.”

There was a spark of something I’d never seen in Ashley’s eyes before when she talked about the job. It was a fire. A determination.

“And what about the Married by the Matchmaker show? Have you heard back from them?”

Her face lit up. “Oh, yeah, I have, actually. I got to the second round. I have a phone interview in a few weeks.” She turned to Daphne. “But enough about me. We’re here to plan a wedding.”

We all shifted our attention to Daphne and found her eyes trained on me. “First, on the agenda, I think we need to have an update on all things Miles Ford.”

“That’s right. What was Miles Happy Trails Hottie Ford talking to you about on the deck at the pizza parlor?” Nadia demanded. “And what were you doing in his room at the boarding house for an hour?”

“Are you seriously going to call him that every time you refer to him?” I asked again.

“Yes.” She nodded solemnly.

I sighed and was actually surprised that she’d waited this long to ask me about it. When I left the pizza parlor with AJ, I was sure my phone was going to blow up with questions, but it hadn’t. And all week, I’d been waiting for her to show up at my house and camp out on my porch until I told her everything, but she hadn’t. I was impressed with the amount of restraint she’dshown. “First of all, I wasn’t in his room for an hour. I was there for five minutes. And I was there because, Miles informed me at the pizza parlor, that he had purchased the movie rights, and that he wouldn’t proceed with its production without my approval.”

All three of the women gawked at me.

“What?” I asked the group at large.

---