Page 79 of A Shade of Myself
Except she’d looked so damn sad sitting by herself on my sofa, drinking shitty rosé alone.
“Don’t leave yet. We haven’t even had book club.” Well, I’d said it, now I had to stick by my words.
She crossed her arms. “You said it was canceled.”
“Old book club was.” I rapped on the coffee table. “I hereby call the inaugural meeting of the Magic Babe Book Club. There are two rules. One, we always have cheese. And two, we only read books that we want to, not because we feel we have to out of some stupid sense of self-improvement.” I held out my hand. “You in?”
“What the hell.” She shook. “So, are we the only members?”
I smiled. “Of course not.”
Forty-five minutes later, Jude, Daya, Ava, and her wife, Romi, sat with Marsha and me in our backyard around a table laden with crackers, tons of cheese, grapes, and several bottles of wine.
Ava and Romi had brought Romi’s seventeen-year-old niece, Tovah, who was staying with them for the weekend. Tovah and Sadie were a bit shy upon meeting, but they had Evani with them upstairs and I had no doubt that the ice would be broken soon enough.
I couldn’t say the same about this group. Awkward silence reigned. Romi made stilted conversation with Daya about imported grapes, while Ava’s question about whether Marsha enjoyed bowling fell flat.
Jude crammed yet another cracker with cheddar into her mouth and rolled her eyes at me.
I poured myself a glass of cold Riesling. I didn’t like it half as much as the Moscato, but I was scared if I cracked open the bottle in my fridge, I down half of it out of nerves at how badly my idea was bombing. All these women were great and social. What had gone so wrong putting them all together? “Why don’t we throw out ideas for our first book?”
Marsha said something so quietly that I had to ask her to repeat it. “There’s this historical romance I’ve wanted to read.”
I almost dropped my glass. Her rules and discussion questions were one thing but forcing me to read pretentious novel after pretentious novel when I could have been luxuriating in more enjoyable books was an unforgiveable crime. “Is there now,” I said flatly.
“Is it an Eloisa James book?” Daya said.
“Who?” I said.
“She writes a lot of witty historicals.” Daya sliced off some gruyere. “I like her.”
“Me too,” Romi said, “but I’m more Julia Quinn person.”
“Regé-Jean Page.” Ava sighed dreamily.
“Even I wouldn’t kick him out of bed,” Romi said, nodding.
I was totally lost but the other women were now bonding over this person, firing opinions about his best scene as the duke.
Jude handed me her phone with a photo pulled up on it. “Regé-Jean Page. He was the lead in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series that was adapted for Netflix.”
“Oh.” Those eyes. That cocky, sexy smile. “Okay, I get it.”
“You don’t,” Marsha said, helping herself to grapes. “Not until you’ve heard his British accent. It takes him to a whole other level.”
“She’s right,” Daya said.
“Fine.” I brushed cracker crumbs off my lap. “I’ll watch it, but we’re discussing book choices now. Is that the one you wanted to read, Marsha?”
“It was a Tessa Dare book, but—”
“Oh!” Daya clapped her hands. “Colin and Minerva’s book?”
Marsha nodded.
“A Week to Be Wicked,” Romi said.
“We are so reading that one,” Ava said. “Smart wallflowers are the best.”
This was more like it. “We’re agreed, then?” Off their nods, I smiled. “Then it’s settled. Eat and drink up, ladies, and we can figure out when the next meeting should be.”
The talk around the table became more relaxed and friendly. Relieved, I had a sip of wine.
Jude flashed me a thumbs-up. I had a new and better book club, we’d survived a demon, and Eli and Sadie had something to bond over. Now to find Rory, figure out who the shark was, what this Ascendant was, and get hot and heavy with Laurent. Oh yeah, most definitely that last part.
