“Riley, your collection of junk food is impressive.”

“I know, right?” the brunette said as she came back into the kitchen. “Some people collect stamps, I collect chips.”

Mollie accepted the pair of folded sweats Riley held out, even as she continued to stare at the cupboard stocked with chips, candy, cheese crackers, and chocolate-covered pretzels.

“Not quite the shelf life of stamps, though,” Mollie mused.

“Pretty damn close,” Riley’s husband muttered from the kitchen table, where he sat bent over a laptop. “That crap is so full of preservatives it could withstand a nuclear holocaust.”

Riley made a crude gesture at his back, and Mollie smiled in spite of her ravaged mood.

She still wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up here. Upon walking out on Jackson a couple hours earlier, she’d found herself standing on Park Avenue, on the verge of a complete breakdown and with absolutely nowhere to go.

She’d nearly called Kim. But while Kim was her best friend in the whole world, her friend had a teensy problem with the phrase “I told you so,” and that so wasn’t what Mollie needed to hear right now.

So instead she’d called a newer friend—one certain to give it to her straight, even if straight hurt.

She’d called Riley Compton.

Mollie had said all of ten words on the phone before Riley had interrupted and asked where she was. Directions on which subway train to get on had followed, and an hour after leaving Jackson’s place, Mollie had found herself standing outside Riley and Sam Compton’s brownstone in Brooklyn.

It had been the right decision. Riley had opened the door, opened her arms, and tightly squeezed Mollie before telling her she’d made up the guest room.

“You know, normally I don’t share my goods,” Riley was saying, “but I make exceptions for friends whose hearts have been trampled by boys. Take your pick. Sweet tooth? Salty tooth?”

“Actually, I’m not all that hungry,” Mollie said. She should be. She hadn’t eaten breakfast. Certainly hadn’t eaten at her disastrous lunch with her sister. But she couldn’t fathom the thought of eating right now. Couldn’t really fathom the thought of doing much more than curling into a ball and crying.

Riley shrugged. “Suit yourself. Now, what do I want? Sour cream and onion, or salt and vinegar? . . . It’s a bit like Rosemary’s Baby, isn’t it?”

“Hey, Ri, how about something from the fridge? Carrot sticks? A salad?” Sam said, turning around in his chair to give his wife an exasperated look.

“Don’t be silly, honey. We don’t keep any of that nonsense in the fridge.”

“We do now. I went shopping.”

“Ooh, did they have any of those powdered-sugar donut holes that I like?”

“Riley!”

“You know, maybe you were smart to get out when you had a chance,” Riley said to Mollie out of the corner of her mouth. “Stick with ’em too long, and they start getting weird.”

“Are you a health food guy, Sam?” Mollie asked curiously, looking over at Sam.

He ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “No. Not really.”

“Oh.” Mollie frowned, a little confused as to why an apparently easygoing guy was trying to influence Riley’s eating habits. Based on what Mollie had seen, that seemed a bit like trying to roll a square boulder up Everest.

“Sam, honey, we need whisky and girl time,” Riley said, grabbing a bag of chips and closing the cupboard.

“Oh no, I don’t want to intrude,” Mollie said quickly. “I can just . . .”

Sam was already moving, closing his laptop and going to a bar cart along the far wall.

“You drink whisky, hon?” he asked Mollie.

“Uh, not really.”

“Well, you do now.” He poured a splash of amber liquid into two crystal glasses and brought one to her before holding up his own glass.

“What are we toasting to?” he asked.

“To men being shits,” Riley said.

He gave his wife a look. “I’m not drinking my own whisky to that.”

“You made this?” Mollie asked, bringing the glass closer and sniffing.

“I did.”

“His distillery is called ROON. It’s won like a dozen awards this year alone, and what he won’t tell you is that it’s the best damn whisky you’ll ever taste,” Riley said, moving closer to her husband and resting a hand on his back as she kissed his cheek.

Mollie’s heart twisted at the easy affection. She wanted that—wanted it with Jackson.

Just like that, the pain came rushing back over her. The pain of telling him how she felt, only to have him stare at her.

“Oh, honey,” Riley cooed, coming up beside her and ushering her toward the kitchen table. “Come. Sit.”

She did as she was told before lifting the whisky to her lips and taking a small sip. It burned in the best way possible. She liked the burn. Needed it.

She lifted her head to tell Sam she liked it, but he’d disappeared, only to reappear with a box of tissues a moment later.

He set it in front of her, resting a big hand on her shoulder for a moment. It was a kind touch—a comforting gesture.

And all she needed for the tears to start coming in earnest.

She put her hands over her face, too torn up to be embarrassed at sobbing in front of people she barely knew.

Riley made soothing noises, along with frequent comments along the lines of “Men are the worst.”

When Mollie pulled her hands away from her face long enough to grab a tissue, she saw Sam wrestling the chips away from Riley, replacing them with an apple before quietly leaving the room.

Riley threw the apple after him and didn’t even flinch at the dull thud of it hitting a wall somewhere.

“That was organic, Riley!” Sam’s voice called.

Mollie choked out a messy, watery laugh. “You’re sure he’s not a health food guy?”

“He didn’t used to be,” Riley grumbled, staring longingly at the barely touched whisky in front of Mollie. Mollie nudged it toward her, but Riley merely shook her head with a long sigh.

Mollie frowned in confusion. Then her eyes went wide as she put the pieces together: Riley saying no to a drink she obviously wanted, Sam’s determination to get Riley to eat better . . .

Riley was pregnant.

At the expression on Mollie’s face, Riley let out a long, weary sigh. “See, the thing that Sam doesn’t get is that it’s not that I want the chips, it’s that the baby wants the chips. If I try to put an apple down there, I guarantee he or she is going to send it right back up again.”

Mollie let out a happy squealing noise as she wrapped her arms around Riley’s neck in an awkward hug. “You’re having a baby! Congratulations.”

Riley laughed and patted her arm. “I am. It’s early yet, so no one outside of the family knows. And the girls, of course, but they are family.”

Mollie rested a hand on Riley’s stomach. The gesture was probably too familiar for a woman she barely knew, but she couldn’t help it. The thought of a little mini Riley or Sam was just too cute for words.

“How do you feel?” Mollie asked.

Riley shrugged. “Not too bad . . . yet. Mostly just excited. And, you know, terrified.”

“You’re going to make the best mom.”

Riley smiled. “Says the girl I just met last night.”

“Yeah, well,” Mollie muttered darkly, slumping back in her chair, “I think I’ve aged a decade in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Riley asked. “If not, it’s okay. You’re welcome to change into comfy clothes and wallow in the guest room as long as you want. There’s a ton of ice cream in the freezer that Sam won’t let me eat.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it,” Mollie said slowly. “It’s just . . . I don’t even know what to say.”

“You two seemed so right last night. You couldn’t take your eyes off each other. What happened?”

Mollie pulled the whisky toward her, cupping it between her hands without taking a drink. “He’s moving back to Texas.”

Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa. Did not see that coming.”

“Yeah. Me neither. Although I keep thinking I should have, you know? There was a time when I knew him better than anyone. And yet somehow, it’s like after we started sleeping together, he became more of a stranger.”

“It works that way sometimes,” Riley said. “Sex complicates things.”

“Why didn’t he just tell me?” Mollie said, more to herself than to Riley. “I would have understood.”

“Would you have?” Riley said with a little smile.

“Maybe. I mean, on one hand, I knew he wasn’t completely over the loss of his football career. But on the other hand, I really thought he was moving forward.”

“That’s why he’s moving back? Football?”

“He got an assistant coaching job on his old team.”

“Ah. Those who can’t play, coach?”

“Apparently.” Mollie rested her elbows on the table and rubbed her temples. “I keep thinking I should have been more understanding. If this is what he wants—”

“What do you want?”

Mollie gave a harsh little laugh. “I don’t know that that matters. For the first time in my life, I did what I wanted. I moved to New York. I made a move on Jackson. Which my sister now knows about, by the way. Went over super well. I did what I wanted, and I’ve never been so miserable.”

“Do you think you would have been happy if you hadn’t? Would you be happy if you were still keeping your feelings all bottled up?”

“At least I wasn’t hurting,” Mollie whispered.

Riley shook her head. “That’s not what I’m asking. Would you have been happy?”

Mollie turned her head and met the other woman’s piercing blue eyes. “I’ve never been so happy as I was the past couple weeks. It felt like my heart was flying.”

“Love can do that.”

“Yeah.” Mollie took a sip of the whisky. “But having that love unreturned feels a bit like crashing and burning.”

“That too.”

Mollie blew out a breath. “I don’t think I can face him. Not after I basically threw my heart at him and he just let it fall to the ground at his feet.”

“You don’t have to,” Riley said, setting a hand on her arm. “Not today, certainly. Not tomorrow. If the man’s too stupid to see what’s right in front of him, maybe it’s better that he slinks off back to Texas. We’ll find you another guy. A better guy.”

Mollie’s eyes watered again. “There is no better guy.”

Riley nudged the tissues toward her with a sigh. “I figured it might be something like that. He’s the one, huh? The only one?”

Mollie nodded and blew her nose.

“Sweetie, I don’t know Jackson. Or you, for that matter. But the man I saw last night, the way he looked at you . . . I don’t think this is easy for him. I’m sure he wants his old life back, but he wants you too. I really believe that.”

“I know,” Mollie whispered. “It’s just . . . I wanted him to want me more. More than he wanted Texas, or football.” Or Madison, she added silently.

Not that she believed he was moving back with the intention of reconciling with his ex. But intention might be irrelevant. When Madison wanted something, she got it, whether or not the other person intended to cooperate.

“So what do we do?” Riley asked.

Mollie took another drink, the motion mechanical. It was as though she could feel herself turning cold inside, even as the whisky burned hot in her throat.

“I need my own place?” Mollie said wearily.

“Sure. I know a great broker if you need a rec. But sweetie, are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

Mollie snorted. “What choice do I have?”

Riley bit her lip and looked hesitant. “You could fight for him.”

“I could. But could I ever be truly happy with someone who won’t fight for me?”

Riley squeezed her arm gently. She didn’t respond to Mollie’s question, but then, she didn’t have to. Mollie already knew what she had to do.

She had to let Jackson go.

For his happiness and her own.