Page 23 of Rocky Top

I had on my best client wrangling dress, a silky red number that hugged just enough to charm without scandalizing. My nails were a perfect matching shade. My hair was curled just so. And my heels? Four inches of pure delusion, but they looked killer under the soft lights of The Marble Room.

This dinner was supposed to be a celebration. New client. Big account. Fancy place that served expensive sushi and even pricer steak. They recently hired a DJ. All my idea since I was their new marketing manager. I should’ve been floating on clouds and ordering dessert covered in exotic flowers.

But my phone buzzed in my clutch.

I glanced at it without thinking, habit, really, and froze.

Eliza:Birdie, I just got a call.

Eliza didn’t text in full sentences unless the world was ending.

Eliza:Mark’s dead. Died in prison.

My breath left me.

I stared at those five words until they blurred. And then I excused myself from the table, all smiles and lies.

“Excuse me just a sec, y’all, got to take this,” I said, grabbing my clutch and slipping out of the booth like I was going to powder my nose.

Instead, I beelined for the lobby, heels clicking like a countdown.

I dialed her, because suddenly the whole restaurant felt too loud and too far away.

She answered on the first ring. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I whispered, “Are you okay?”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”

“Where are you?”

“At home. Emma’s asleep. Knox is here.”

My chest eased at the mention of him. That man was a rock, and he’d stepped up for Eliza in ways I wouldn’t have dared wish for back when Mark was still dragging her through the dirt.

“I’m coming over,” I said without hesitation.

“You don’t have to…”

“Eliza, don’t even finish that sentence.”

She laughed, wet and thin like she’d been crying.

I was already in the valet line. “I’ll be there in twenty. You want me to bring anything?”

“Just you.”

“You got me.”

I showed up at Eliza’s front door looking like a 1950s movie star lost her way to the Oscars and wound up in suburbia. She opened the door in sweats and tear-smudged mascara.

“I brought wine,” I said, holding up a bottle I’d snagged from the gas station near her neighborhood. It was cheap and probably barely grape, but the gesture counted.

Eliza’s arms wrapped around me before I could say another word.

“I didn’t expect to feel this way,” she said into my shoulder. “I hated him. I really did.”

I nodded, hugging her tight. “But you also loved him once. And he gave you Emma. It’s okay to feel messy about it.”

---