Page 121 of Get A Fix

“You realize,” she told me in confidence as we were waiting for the bride and her wedding party and friends to return from the early morning boat trip, “that he’s now given me a small thing I have to keep track of in the laundry.”

“Yeah, well, she’s happy,” I said, smiling as I watched her and Ash standing near the patio doors, him holding her as they looked at the boats in Penobscot Bay together.

“Yes, but I’m going to have to unpin and pin it, and⁠—”

“Never mind, look,” I whispered, bumping her, tipping my head toward the entrance to the lobby, where the women who had gone out on the early morning boat ride were staggering in.

“Holy shit,” Ainsley said under her breath, trying really hard not to smile. “They look like ass.”

Wet, with windblown hair, but not in a sexy way, more in a convertible-without-a-scarf way. Many made it as far as the couches and collapsed. I noted that not one of them took off their sunglasses.

Sienna looked the best out of the entire bedraggled mob, and that was not saying much. She didn’t stagger, she was shuffling, and crossed the lobby toward us. Bentley ran by her to the bathroom, while Jennifer didn’t make it and threw up into a trash can near the concierge desk. What was impressive was that it was one of those with the hole in the side, so she had to tip it to make sure she didn’t splatter.

“Was it worth it?” Ainsley asked Sienna as she reached us, shaking her head.

“Most were still drunk when we left,” she told her. “Every one of us, including me, is hungover, and yes, it was so worth it, because I had an epiphany this morning.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s never going to marry me.”

Ainsley and I just looked at her because really, what were we supposed to say?

Crossing her arms, Sienna sighed deeply. “Damien’s family is in Chicago,” she explained. “He was in New York this past year for a merger, but he’s going home soon.”

I had gotten that from different conversations. Small wonder I hadn’t run into him at home—he hadn’t been in the city.

“He wants us to do the long-distance thing, since I can’t leave New York,” she said sadly. “My family is there, all my friends—not these people here, but the women I share my life with. My career is there. My life.”

“Long distance can work,” Ainsley told her. “Look at Ash and Cooper. They’re committed, and if you are, it’s doable.”

She took off her oversize sunglasses then, and we both saw how red and puffy her eyes were. “Not when it’s with someone who doesn’t really care.”

Ainsley stepped forward, arms open, and Sienna basically fell into her.

“I’m sorry I screamed the first night when your daughter was coming toward me.”

“It was Valentino,” Ainsley said, chuckling.

“But Cooper didn’t care,” she said, starting to cry.

“Yes, but Cooper was wearing a dark suit, sweetheart, which is not at all the same.”

“It’s Tom Ford,” I mouthed to Ainsley.

“Zip it,” she returned, making her eyes big so I would.

Once Sienna cried all over Ainsley, she cried all over me, and we made plans to see each other in the summer because she had to be in Chicago for a meeting at Sutter, a global real estate company based in my city.

“I won’t be with Damien by then,” she sniffled. “So maybe you could introduce me to your friend Rais?”

I smiled and nodded.

“That sounded like she might be healing already,” Ainsley commented once Sienna left us. “And who is this Rais?”

I found him in my contacts and turned the phone to her.

“Oh my. Look at him,” she said wistfully. “Are his shoulders quite that wide in real life?”