Page 3 of The Puck Stops Here

Her new bestie shrugged like it was nothing. ‘Thanks.’

‘So you don’t have an office or anything?’

‘Nope.’ Red tendrils bounced, tickling at Astrid’s nose they were sat that close together. ‘I actually house sit for people so I move around a lot and the nature of my business means I can work from wherever I am. Have laptop, will travel.’

Astrid got that. She was a bit of a nomad herself, her work as a freelance journalist taking her all over the world in pursuit of her next big scoop.

‘Is it why you’re in the US? Work?’

‘No. I was at a wedding in Chicago.’

‘Oh, how lovely,’ Sienna crooned. ‘How was it?’

‘You know. Pavlova dress. Drunken best man’s speech. Smooshing cake into each other’s faces. A handsy Uncle Chip.’

Ugh! Astrid swapped her phone for her drink – there’d been one too manystepdads like Uncle Chip back in the day.

‘I’d rather not talk about weddings,’ Bella blurted.

‘Not a fan?’ Paige asked.

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Don’t believe in love?’

‘I did. And then six months ago I stood up in front of 400 guests to let them know that my groom wasn’t coming.’

‘Holy mother of…’ Astrid spluttered over her drink, free hand launching out to grab Bella’s forearm. ‘You were jilted?’

‘Yup. By text. The morning of…’

‘Bytext? What kind of scumbag does that?’

‘Who is he?’ Sweet Sienna spat fire. ‘Tell me! I’ll bring you his head.’

Everyone laughed but beneath the joviality the sense of injustice burned deep… or was that just indigestion from the fizz and the sugar and the oh-so pretty candyfloss? Eek!

‘He’s not a bad person really, he just did a bad thing…’

And then Bella launched into a series of excuses while Astrid ground her teeth, because she’d heard it all before with Mum and her exes. They’d always had a reason to be a shit. Worse, they’d always managed to turn each one on Mum. Foreverherfault, not theirs.

‘Doesn’t excuse him leaving you standing at the altar,’ Sienna said.

‘Viatext,’ Astrid stressed as her mind turned to her own‘failed relationship’and how that had been very muchnother fault. But her guilt was real.And she shuddered with reignited horror as the six-month-old memory clawed its way to the surface.

‘Well!’ she announced, recognising the kindred spirits around her and the safe space they had created. She could share her sordid little secret. Better still, her ex could get a verbal pasting by these ladies and make her feel a smidge vindicated. ‘You can string mine up!’

‘Were you jilted as well?’ Sienna’s big blue eyes rounded on her.

‘No.’ She took a courage-boosting gulp of fizz, then said, ‘Unbeknownst to me, he’d already trotted up that aisle and merrily said “I do” to someone else.’

Bella – gorgeous, sophisticated, elegant, Bella – eyed her closely and Astrid withstood her scrutiny because it wasn’t judgement she saw, but sympathy. ‘So, he turned you into the other woman?’

‘Too right he did.’ Astrid’s shoulders sagged, knowing that Bella got it, sensing they all got it. ‘Made me feel like a piece of shit.’

Sienna shook her head, her honeyed locks doing a little dance of their own. ‘Are you freaking kidding me? He was already married?’

‘He’s an artist too, all about creating the feels in people… Chase Miller can give youthe feelsalright. The kind you want F-all to do with. Believe me.’

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