Chapter One

Today

It's just days after Christmas, so I expected a busier airport crowd. Maybe with this heavy downpour and delayed flights, less urgent travelers decided to wait a day another day or two.

I'm not such a person. I've got places to be.

While knotting my shoelaces on a bench outside of security, my phone rings again in the back pocket of my jeans. I pull it out, seeing Hattie's face light up the screen, her smile hidden under a fake white beard.

It's from Halloween ten years ago. She went as Colonel Sanders. I was a chicken.

"Hey!" I say into the phone. "How was Christmas?"

My eldest sister sighs, her voice bumpy. She always paces when she's on the phone.

"It was fine," she answers. "The kids got way too much stuff. We told Janet to only give them one gift each but, of course, she wanted to outdo Mom and Dad, so she got Riley an electric Barbie car and Liam a stupid hoverboard thing. On top of about ten other presents. So, there's that…"

I smile at an elderly couple walking slowly beside me and lift my head in search of a specific orange sign sticking out from the wall.

"I talked to Gracie yesterday," she continues. "She said Aunt Zoey got black-out drunk at brunch."

"Oh yeah . That happened."

"Why?"

"The same shit." The events of Christmas day come to mind. "She went into a rage about how she's about to be thrice divorced and then threw Gerry's grandfather's World War Two medals into the lake."

" Oh my God! " Hattie snorts a laugh because this kind of story is only funny when you're not a witness.

I hike my canvas carry-on bag higher on my shoulder and heeding the warning of a running family wearing matching Disney shirts. Moving out of their way, I fall into the line for coffee. "Dad and Steve had to fish them out."

"Damn, Gracie didn't tell me about all of that."

Not surprised.

"Well, did Gracie say much other than to talk about herself?" I ask.

Our middle sister, at thirty-three-years-old, holding her infant daughter, berated her husband all day because Steven was supposed to get her a spa package at the Ritz Carlton for Christmas, but he bought her an hour-long massage at the cement building off the highway. The one with bars on the windows. The one that used to be a daycare.

Hattie answers, "No. She just gave me the basics. Told me you were leaving early for your trip. When's your flight?"

I step forward in the line. "It leaves at 10:15."

" Wow . Twenty minutes, Ella. You wouldn't be you if you weren't cutting it close, huh?"

"How do you know I haven't been here for hours?"

"Because I called you ten minutes ago and you didn't answer, which meant you were going through TSA."

"Hold on, Hat." I pull the phone away from my ear and order a latte at the counter. After handing over my credit card, I say, "Sorry, I'm back."

"You'll have to chug that coffee." She says, "So tell me about your birthday trip! I'm so jealous. I want to come to the Keys. It's so damn cold in Pennsylvania. Why did I agree to move here? Ugh, anyway…who all is going?"

There's a group of waiting customers standing against the wall, so I join the pack, setting my bag atop my feet. A hot pink bikini strap sticks out from an opening in the zipper.

"Johnny," I tell her. "Obviously. And Jen."

"The fiancée." She makes a sound. "I bet she's excited to finally meet you ."

"Johnny will have told her there's nothing to worry about." I reach into my sweater and rub an itchy line under my tank top.

"You're her soon-to-be-husband's female best friend. There's nothing he can say to calm her fears until she meets you. Even then…"

"You know Johnny. He probably told her nothing about me, but he would have gagged at the suggestion of he and I being romantic."

I always picture Johnny Wagner at eight years old, walking across the yard in his new glasses, making me beg my mom to get me some. Johnny hated them but I thought they were so cool, and I wanted to be just like my best friend. He had this easy way about him while I had zero control over my emotions. As we got older, some part of me thought I could absorb his chill and stop myself from having panic attacks and stripping off my clothes in public places so I could breathe.

Then, I realized that Johnny had problems, he just didn't deal with them. He let them roll off his shoulders, down the ground for someone else to pick up, and I wished I wasn't the person doing the heavy lifting.

Hattie asks, "Who else is going?"

"Serena and her girlfriend will be there."

"You all are so incestuous, it's so odd to me," she grumbles. My niece and nephew argue in the background. "Isn't it weird to still be friends with Serena when she and Johnny dated for so long?"

"It was for two years early in college. She's with a woman now. They're completely fine."

Self-proclaimed half-hippie-half-basic-bitch , Serena could never get booted from the group. I needed another girl who understood these boys I surrounded myself with and she needed a group of friends she could be honest and comfortable around.

She met Callie in a spin class. Callie, the hairstylist, who also does Brazilian Jui Jitsu and went to cooking school and was an off-camera contestant on a season of Love Is Blind. She's one of the coolest people I know. She has no business being our friend.

"All right, all right. Who else?" Hattie says.

I wave a hand toward the barista when he calls out my name. "Wyatt, Johnny's old roommate. You met him, I think? Skinny, tattoos, colored hair. Runs on Red Bull and Will Ferrell movie quotes. And Ritchie's coming, too."

" Oh ."

I pick up my bag and collect my coffee, heat rising to my cheeks when she says this in the swoony way that she does.

She repeats in the same tone, " Ritchie ."

"Yeah. Ritchie."

"Of the newly single Ritchies of Charlotte, North Carolina?"

"How do you know where he lives?"

"I Insta-stalk because I need faces to names and then suddenly, I know everything about these people."

"Oh, well, then yes. One and the same." My eyes ping around the concourse, looking for Gate E35 to Miami. It's not very full. I step over a dark stain on the carpet, find an empty seat and plop down.

Hattie asks, "How did you swing that one?"

"Ritchie always hangs out with us. He's part of the group," I explain. "It's not like he's coming because it's my birthday or anything."

"Maybe that is why he's coming. He's fresh off his divorce and he knows you're a little loose with your morals. Maybe he'll get you a present. A nice, big, hard -"

"Stop," I demand. "Now."

She laughs like she does, probably throwing her head back, loving how mortified I am at her never-subtle innuendoes. People around me keep their eyes on the gate, and I sip my coffee.

Hattie finally stops laughing and says, "And…what about Tucker?"