Chapter 3 #3
“Are you talking about the Beretti trust?” Emmy asks with a grimace. “Why are you working on that at the lake? The lake is for the opposite of work.”
Emmy and I are both associates at the firm my mom owns with Tyler’s, Sophie’s, and Maddy’s moms, but that’s where our similarities end.
Where I do everything as far in advance as possible and am allergic to procrastination, Emmy treats procrastination as an art form.
It’s an ironic fact of life that both of our work products are impeccable, mistake free, and always on time, because I’m the kind of lawyer who stresses for weeks, and Emmy pulls an all-nighter the night before a deadline and manages perfection.
“Because it took me a million years to draft the first trust, and this one is so much harder on account of an entire second family, a wife who now hates him and is yelling about divorce, and kids who won’t speak to him.
It’s a huge cluster-fuck, and when I told the moms about it, they just laughed and said Your problem. ”
“What’s your problem?”
We all turn as my mom, Hallie, and her best friends Julie, Emma, and Molly appear in the doorway of my room.
I roll my eyes. “The trust from hell you decided to wash your hands of and dump on Em and me.”
My mom laughs, kissing me on the head and sitting a hip on the bed. “Don’t look at me. Trusts are not my specialty. That was all Molly.”
Sophie’s mom Molly grins and steals Sarah’s bag of Reese’s Pieces, grabbing a handful and tossing them into her mouth.
“What’s the benefit of being the boss if I can’t dump work I don’t want to do on the younger lawyers?
If I had to be the one to deal with Mr. Beretti’s fuckery, I would tell him exactly what I think of him, and that wouldn’t end well for our bottom line. ”
“You should have told him,” Tyler’s mom Julie says, propping a hand on her hip. “I don’t give a shit about our bottom line. I think if men are assholes, we should get to fire them as clients on principle.”
“Fuck yeah,” Emmy says, holding up her hand to Julie for a high five. “That’s why I wanted to come work for you guys. A+ badassery.”
“No one is firing anyone yet.” Emma slides onto the bed next to Maddy, running a hand over Maddy’s red ponytail. “Draft the trust, bill him through the nose for it, then fire him.”
“Definitely yes,” my mom says, rooting around in my nightstand drawer and coming up with a bag of mini-Reese’s cups.
My friends aren’t the only women who end up in my room on a lake trip.
At some point, like now, the moms always show up too, and I’ve never said this out loud to anyone, but these are my favorite times.
My mom and her friends, who practically raised me too. My best friends and me.
All my most important people in one place, at one time. It feels special. Magical almost. Like nothing bad could ever happen as long as I have these women on my side. How, despite everything, I’m the lucky one.
“So what are you girls talking about in here?” Molly asks, nudging Sophie over and squeezing onto the bed next to her.
I grin a little wickedly. “The state of Sophie’s vagina after her little fuck-fest this morning and how I can’t imagine sitting on those wooden chairs in the kitchen this morning was comfortable. Maybe you should carry around a pillow or something, Soph.”
Sophie turns bright red and glares at me before sliding her eyes to Julie, who, despite being one of the moms who raised us all, is also Tyler’s mom and Sophie’s soon-to-be mother-in-law.
But Julie just grins and plops down on the foot of the bed, patting Sophie’s knee.
“Don’t be embarrassed, honey. I know for sure you’re not the only person on this bed right now who had really good sex before breakfast. I definitely did. ”
“I did too,” Molly says with a grin.
“Gross,” Sophie mutters.
“You bet I did.” Emma smirks. “Twice.”
“Oh my god.” Maddy buries her face in her knees. “So gross. But also, same.”
“Definitely same,” my mom says. Her voice adopts a dreamy sort of tone and I turn, pointing at her.
“No.”
“No what?” she asks with an innocent smile.
I shake my head. “No talking about how you like lake sex the best since you and dad had sex here for the first time a zillion years ago and now it’s sentimental or whatever. I could live the rest of my life without ever hearing that story again.”
“Oh my god,” Molly says with a laugh. “Remember when we came to get you for breakfast the morning after and Ben just sauntered out of your bathroom all disheveled and half-dressed and that’s how you told us you were together?”
I groan, but it’s half-hearted because the truth is, it’s always felt special—the way my dad loves my mom.
A once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Except I look around and realize my mom’s friends all have once-in-a-lifetime loves, and now Sophie and Maddy do too.
And maybe I’m not destined to have one of my own, but I do have these women.
And I know I’m not always the easiest person to love, but they love me, and in this moment, that means everything.