Page 2 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
Onyx fills the screen, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, the scar along her hairline visible because she never hides it anymore. Behind her, The Foundry's kitchen glows warm, all exposed brick and copper pans. And somewhere off-camera the low rumble of Kon's voice rolls through with him saying something in Russian that makes Onyx's mouth twitch into a half grin.
Lucky duck.
"Tell me you're not sitting on your couch alone with wine and Patsy Cline."
I pull the throw blanket higher over my legs and take a long sip before answering. "I'm sitting on the couch alone with wine and Patsy Cline."
"Sloane Whitmore." Her blue eyes narrow through the screen and her chin drops, that look she gives me when I'm testing the limits of her patience and she wants me to know it. "It is your birthday. Get off the couch. Put on something with a dangerous neckline. Go to Scarlet Thorn and find a man who doesn't ghost you after three dates."
I press my lips together and blow out a breath that fogs the rim of my wine glass. "Onyx, the last man I found at Scarlet Thorn had a wife in Naperville and a girlfriend in Lincoln Park." I shift against the cushions and tuck my feet beneath me tighter, balancing the phone against my knee. "I was the side piece to the side piece. My love life has layers of failure that scientists haven't classified yet."
Her laugh crackles through the phone speaker. "Okay, fair. But Marco before him was pretty solid."
"Marco had the hands of an angel and the commitment issues of a feral cat. He's currently in Bali finding himself, which is code for sleeping with Australian backpackers and pretending tattoo artistry is a spiritual calling."
"You really know how to pick them."
"I do. I have a gift. An actual, quantifiable gift for choosing men who are fun for exactly long enough to get comfortable and then vanish like they were made of dreams and smoke." I swirl the wine in my glass and watch droplets slide down the inside, slow and crimson. "I'm starting to think I do it on purpose."
The silence on her end tells me she agrees but loves me too much to say so.
"What about Ramen Guy?" she offers, her voice softer now. "He was sweet."
"Ramen Guy dumped me because I have, and I quote, 'an intimidating personal aesthetic.' The man was scared of my eyeliner, Onyx. My eyeliner. He even told me he could hook me up for classes with his mom who is a make-up artist."
"His loss. You know who wouldn't be scared of your eyeliner?" My best friend pauses, and something mischievous and knowing moves through her expression. "A man who's actually built for a woman with your level of intensity. Someone older. Someone who doesn't flinch."
My throat tightens. The wine glass stills in my hand.
She doesn't mean Massimo. She can't mean Massimo because I have never said his name out loud in that context, havenever let the syllables form in connection with the wordwantwhere anyone could hear them. But Onyx reads people the way other women read horoscopes, with terrifying accuracy and zero regard for privacy, and the way her blue eyes hold mine through the screen makes me wonder how much she's already figured out.
"What I need," I say, steering hard away from the cliff she just walked me toward, "is to stop dating entirely and invest in a high-quality vibrator and a subscription to a streaming service that doesn't judge me and my tastes."
"Tragic. Truly tragic." She grins, letting me have the redirect, and I love her for it. "Come over. Kon's making that stew you love. He already set a place for you."
My heart tugs me toward The Foundry and the warm kitchen, the man who would feed me without asking me why I'm dateless on my birthday. He'd just shovel more food at me and good wine. Kon shows love through food and silence, and both sound better than Patsy Cline right now. But three is a crowd when two of the three are disgustingly in love and one of the three is mainlining self-pity on her birthday.
"I'm good here. Really. Wine, music, my couch. The holy trinity of coping."
"Sloane."
"You're right. I need ice cream. I'll make a call to the grocery store. I love you for asking. Rain check?"
Her sigh carries the specific frustration of a best friend who knows pushing will only make me dig in harder. "Fine. But I'm calling you tomorrow and you better have done something funtonight, even if that something is ordering overpriced sushi and watching trash television."
Oh. Not a bad idea. "Deal."
"Happy birthday, babe. You deserve all the happiness in the world."
"So you keep telling me."
"Because it's true. And one day you're going to believe me." Her voice drops, warm and fierce and full of the stubborn love that makes Onyx the best person I know. "Goodnight, Sloane."
"Goodnight."
The screen goes dark and the apartment swallows me back into its pretty, curated silence.
Patsy finishes her song. The needle lifts and settles into the runoff groove, a soft rhythmic clicking that fills the gap between tracks. My wine glass is almost empty again and the buzz has moved from my chest into my limbs, making everything feel warmer and softer and just blurred enough to make me believe I'm happy right where I am.
