Page 8 of Luck of the Draw

Sam leaned her head back and moaned. “Come on, Dee. We haven’t even made it to the reception yet.”

“And we’re not going to,” I said in my best mom voice, crossing my arms to make sure she knew I meant business.

But Sam had known me since middle school, and she knew I was all bark and no bite. “Look, if you had no intention of going back to the reception, then why didn’t you walk to the car with me?”

I pointed to my feet, which were now covered with my worn, black flats. They weren’t anything like the sexy shoes Sam’s cousin had loaned me, but at least I could walk without worrying about falling over. “I was waiting for myshoes. I couldn’t walk all the way to the car barefoot.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m not leaving until I get Melinda’s shoes back. She needs them for her job tomorrow at the Bare Kitty Gentlemen’s Lounge, and she’ll kill me if I don’t return them in time.”

My mouth literally fell open. “Melinda got a job as a stripper?”

I was shocked at first, but as I thought about it, it wasn’t all that surprising. Melinda had always been wild. Then a new thought hit me.

“Oh, my God! I was wearing shoes she stripped in?” I sucked in a breath, feeling light-headed. “Did she use those shoes to rub some guy’s crotch in a lap dance?” I started shuffling my feet, wondering if syphilis was transmittable from foot sweat.

Sam burst out laughing, the sound echoing in the now-dusky evening. The arboretum visitors had all left, leaving only the sounds of music and the chatter of wedding guests from the now-completed wedding ceremony. She clapped her hand over her mouth. Then when she settled down, she dropped her hand and said, “Calm down. She’s still workin’ as a bartender at a place south of town. Although shehasconsidered stripping.” Her brow lifted. “There’s good money to be made there, Dee. We might consider it if we get too cash-strapped.”

My eyes flew wide. “Have youlost your mind, Samantha Rothschild?”

She gave me a smug look. “Maybe I’ve just found it,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Maybe it’s been shoved up in a dusty attic for far too long, and SamanthaJohnsonhas finally come to her senses.”

I stared at her in horror. “You’re having a midlife crisis, and I’m just caught up in the middle of it.”

She burst out laughing again, then shook her head. “I’m not having a midlife crisis. If anything, I had a young adult crisis when I married that no-good asshole Bobby Rothschild when I was nineteen years old.”

“You were pregnant,” I gently reminded her. “You were scared, and your parents thought it was for the best.”

“Youdidn’t think it was for the best,” she countered, her anger ebbing. “You told me you’d help me raise my baby.”

“And I meant every word of it,” I said. “And I sort of did.”

Her son Cooper was eighteen now, about to graduate from high school, and had been accepted to UNC for next fall. His father was a selfish asshole, but Cooper was a good boy, thanks to Sam. Her ex hadn’t bothered with the kids hardly at all. I was the one who’d gone to their T-ball and soccer games with Sam, and I’d brought my own kids to Cooper’s football games when he started playing in middle school and high school. Just like I’d been there with her daughter Mallory, who was just three years younger, for her dance recitals and volleyball games. Sam’s kids were like my niece and nephew, and she was right—I’d been fully prepared to move in with her and co-parent her child. But her mother had convinced her that her baby needed a father, and Sam had fallen for the fairy tale of a happy family hook, line, and sinker. She’d been impulsive back then, but her mother had convinced her she was having a baby of her own and it was time to grow up.

“I understand where this is coming from,” I said solemnly. “When you go through a divorce, you look at the beginning of your relationship and see everything through a different lens.”

“Is that something Bear told you?”

“No, I read it in a self-help book. I have it on my nightstand, if you want to borrow it.”

“I don’t need a self-help book to know I gave up the person I was to become Mrs. Bobby Rothschild. I don’t need a book to tell me that I’m tired of being this shrinking violet I’ve become. I’m taking charge of my life, and fuck anyone who tries to stop me!” Then she turned around and marched toward the sounds of the reception.

I stared at her back, wondering what had just happened. This day was not going anything like I’d expected. Sam had picked me up and taken me to the beauty school where her cousin Ashley was training to become a hairdresser. Ashley needed the practice, and Sam had declared I needed a makeover. Since she wasn’t wrong, and she’d strongly suggested I was doing Ashley a favor, I’d let her work her magic. She’d not only trimmed it but had given me layers and burgundy highlights that gave my hair added depth. But Sam hadn’t stopped there. We’d gotten mani-pedis next—more practice for Ashley’s friends. Then Ashley took us to the house she shared with her sister Melinda, where she did our makeup and then found me a dress and shoes from a closet as big as Ollie’s bedroom.

I barely recognized myself in the mirror. The woman staring back at me didn’t look frazzled or careworn. She looked happy.

That feeling had lasted right up until Sam had dragged me around the corner of the greenhouse about a half hour ago. Foolish me had believed her story about purchasing tickets to a black-tie/formal event. She hadn’t confessed we were crashing a wedding until I asked why we were sneaking into the party.

Then we’d gotten caught, ornearlycaught, as Sam had pointed out. She’d told me this night was for me, so I could finally live a little and check off the challenge. And if that were true, the solution to this screwup would be obvious—we’d go home and turn on Tom Hanks—but as I watched her retreating back, it struck me that this was also for her. Samantha Johnson had been wild and carefree. It was like she’d just woken up and realized she’d been asleep for nearly two decades. She needed this adventure to shed the hooks Bobby still had in her back.

Which meant, obviously, that I had to follow her.

The reception area was full of round tables with pretty floral arrangements and candles. Twinkle lights were strung over an open area that was presumably the dance floor. A band was playing a cover song from the 2000s on a small stage behind it.

There looked to be about two hundred people present, which meant it would be easier for us to get lost in the crowd. Even more so when I saw multiple tables markedopen seating.

But first I had to find Sam.

She was in line for the bar, about fifteen people from the counter, and I headed straight for her.

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