Page 66 of Looks Real Good Now
Before I could answer, a phone started vibrating on the bedside table. She twisted around to grab her phone, and I nipped at the skin on the side of her breast.
“Hey Max,” she said, excitement in her voice.
“Hey yourself,” the voice of my former nutritionist came through the phone. I had questions about how Maxxy knew Lenny.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
“Need to talk to you about this party.”
“Shit! Give me a second,” Lenny muted the call and looked at me with an apology already swimming in her eyes. “So, I have literally just remembered that I’m supposed to be going back to Detroit tomorrow.”
“Because you’re having a party?” She rolled her eyes at my obvious confusion over the whole sentence.
“Yeah, I didn’t plan it. Kai was, I guess rightfully, a bit presumptuous and thought that he would combine an engagement party with New Year’s Eve. So he sent out all these invites, which I forgot about until my final week at work when Maxxy mentioned she was going to have to deal with the setup because I was here, not in Detroit.”
“How do you even know the nutritionist of the Panthers?”
“Oh, Maxxy was my freshman roommate, and we clicked. She’s my best friend and the reason your entire team can eat countless baked goods. I tweak the recipes of their favourites so they fit in with their meal plans, which I get from good ol’ Maxine.”
“You do that?” Just when I thought I couldn’t love her more.
“Yeah, it’s not that big a deal. That team keeps me in business. Don’t worry, your birthday brownies were full of all the good shit.”
“Wait, when did he propose?”
“September,” she replied, reluctantly. I knew why.
“He didn’t?”
“Technically, no. My birthday was on the Sunday, he proposed on the Saturday.”
“You spent your thirty-first birthday alone?”
“No, I spent it with Max,” she unmuted the call. “Sorry aboutthat. What about this party?”
“Well, I am looking at all the decorations and they are very…”
“Engagement heavy?”
“Yeah, so unless you’re marrying number seventeen after ten days, the decorations are non-existent. What do you wanna do?”
“Are even the balloons contaminated?”
“There are a lot and the ones that don’t have some engagement reference on them are gold, which doesn’t really fit your overall vibe. But don’t think I didn’t notice just now that you avoided acknowledging my comment on number seventeen. Which, let’s be real, is the real reason I called, because I can deal with the decorations. Can we circle back to who you are dating? When and how did you meet the man who broke a thousand hearts?”
Lenny looked at me, her eyebrows pinched together. “Is that a thing?”
It was. I tried to avoid it, but it followed me around, and Teddy liked to rib me for it when he thought I was enjoying retirement a little bit too much. Which was often.
“You’re avoiding the question once again,” Maxxy said. Lenny rolled her eyes.
“Short answer, we met at the airport when we both flew home for Christmas.”
“No, that is not going to cut it because I know you, and there is no way you would have done half the things I’ve seen splashed over the internet with a person you had known mere days. So, long answer, please.”
I smiled because I’d always liked Maxxy, but I liked her even more now knowing just how well she knew my girl.
“Remember I told you about that guy in high school…” she trailed off and let Maxxy fill in the blanks. Maxxy didn’t take long to piece it together.
