Ava stared at her freshly painted toes as the pedicurist wound tissue between them to allow the polish to dry. She felt heavy and dull and achy. She’d been exhausted for weeks. Her mind felt like a big fat ball of tangled yarn. Her heart felt like a boulder.

Katie turned from the manicurist’s table and swayed to the massage chair at her side. She was smiling at her new manicure as she spun and sat. “Nothing better than a day at the spa to perk up a girl’s spirit, right?”

Ava picked up a magazine and opened it to a random page so she had something to look at other than Katie. “Mmm-hmm.”

“All right, girlfriend,” the manicurist, Mandy, a sassy Southern girl, said to Katie as she settled on her stool, “please tell me we’re doing something more exciting on your toes than we did on your nails, or I might fall asleep facedown in your polish.”

Katie picked a color that also agreed with Mandy, then she sighed, sat back, and played with the massage chair’s remote. “This is the perfect way to spend a day before you start your sexy new job.” Katie beamed at her. “What a windfall. I’ve already put a bug in a few ears. Your family is going to be twisted inside out when the news finally reaches them.”

“What’s the sexy new job?” Mandy asked.

“Vice president of regional operations for North America and Europe for the Quantum Group,” Katie announced proudly.

“I have no idea what that means,” Mandy said, “but it sounds like you’re some kinda hot shit.”

Ava smiled at Mandy, then told Katie, “You’re awesome. Have I told you that lately?”

“No, but that’s okay.” She blew on her already-dry nails. “I know.”

Ava laughed a little, but the misery cluttering her chest quickly closed in and stole all humor. She flipped a page in the magazine, wondering how long it would be before she could end this façade and crawl back into bed. She only had one more day to indulge in the unrelenting hurt.

“I was thinking,” Katie said. “Maybe I’ll come meet you when you travel. You know, to places I haven’t been yet. I’ll fly in your last day of work, we’ll celebrate that night, and then hit the sightseeing trail the next day.”

“Y’all count me in on that,” Mandy murmured.

“Where haven’t you been?” Ava asked.

“I know France inside out. I’ve been to Paris more times than I can count, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Montpellier.” Then she added in a singsong “But never Nice.” She sighed and dropped her head against the chair. “Oh, how amazing would it be to spend a week in the south of France?”

“Scratch that,” Mandy said. “You ladies are way out of my league.”

Ava’s mind veered toward the new job waiting for her. The Quantum Group had her travel schedule inked in for the next two years, and she would be spending half her time in very metropolitan and exotic locations with an expense account her father would choke on. She’d been offered double her salary at Jennings Steel and double quarterly bonuses. And the idea of being on the other side of the world from her family was appealing at the moment.

The job gratified and vindicated her in one way and left her utterly empty in another. She’d never pursued the education or the job for the money. She’d done it for her family. Without the underlying goal of furthering her family’s business, the job lost all its spark. Ava found herself adrift in a field that didn’t interest her with no qualifications to do anything else.

She also found herself wanting to pick up the phone and talk to Isaac about it. Over the last few weeks, she’d had plenty of time to research him. He’d taken the same path as Ava—following in his father’s footsteps, working together to build a family legacy. But he’d left their engineering firm after Jeremy’s death. She was jealous of the relationship he’d maintained with his parents in the wake of the tragedy. Jealous of his love for his newfound career. Jealous of his independence.

“Okay,” Katie said, “so Nice doesn’t thrill you. What about Madrid? You’ve always wanted to see Spain, and I’ve never been there either.”

Ava’s mind immediately veered toward Isaac and his story about running with the bulls in Pamplona. The memory hit her like a knife in the gut.

“Oh-kay,” Katie said, her voice dropping in pitch. “Maybe not.”

“I’m sorry.” Ava closed the magazine and slumped into her chair. “It’s just a huge transition. I’m still getting my head around it.” She forced a smile for Katie. “I’d love to travel with you. Let me get started and get my feet under me, then we’ll plan something.”

“Or, you could open up that magazine again and see if you find a cure for your screwed-up state of mind.”

Ava frowned down at the magazine and found she’d been looking through Psychology Today. She tossed the magazine aside and gave Katie a dry “You’re hilarious.”

“And you’re pathetic.”

“Hey, I don’t need you reminding me. I’m doing enough of it for both of us.”

“If you were doing it enough, you’d have made a change in your life by now.”

Ava tossed her hands in the air. “What happened to celebrating my sexy new job you’ve been thrilled about?”

“It’s pretty tough to be thrilled when you’re moping.”

“I’m not—” She caught Mandy’s sideways glance and gave herself a quick mental slap. “Okay, I’ve been moping. I’m sorry. I think the job is amazing, and I’m grateful for the opportunity—”

“Shut up,” Katie said. “This isn’t a fuckin’ job interview.”

“Now don’t be too hard on her,” Mandy said. “When a girl’s heart’s broke, it’s hard to be excited about much.”

“My heart’s not broken,” she told Mandy. “It was just…just…a thing.”

“Tell yourself whatever you gotta, hon.”

Exasperated, she turned back to Katie. “What are my options, here?” she asked. “Really? Even if I wanted to repair things with him—which I’m not sure I do—we live two hours apart. That, on top of this job, virtually kills any reason to even think about starting things up again.”

Though it didn’t eliminate her need or her obligation to apologize for the way she’d acted at the event. For how abruptly and brutally she’d ended their relationship.

“You don’t have to take the job.”

“Of course I have to take the job. I have rent, a car payment. I have everyday bills that add up faster than I can blink—dry cleaning, cell phone, internet. Not to mention all the travels you’ve been talking about. I’ve already drained my savings.”

“Baby violins are playin’ over here for you, girl,” Mandy said.

Ava ignored her and spoke to Katie. “How can you say I don’t have to take the job?”

“Because you don’t want it.”

“Of course I want it. It was, far and away, the best offer.”

“Even the best offer isn’t good enough if you have to spend every day doing something you don’t love. You’d just be settling.”

“Amen, girlfriend,” Mandy added. “I should know.”

Ava pulled in a breath to argue, but swallowed her words. Then reframed her thoughts. And that pulled her right back into depression. “None of this matters. I need a direction for my life, and I need an income. This job gives me both.”

Katie scoffed.

“Okay, spit it out.” She shifted in her chair to face Katie. “Just say everything you want to say to me in one piece. You’ve been tossing little snippets at me for weeks, and I’m obviously too dense to put it together. So just tell me.”

“Yeah,” Mandy said, “Get it out there, girl.”

“You need to go see him,” Katie said.

“I know. I will. I just have to figure out how to apologize for being a schizophrenic bitch.”

Mandy made a sound in her throat—half laugh, half good luck.

“It goes like this: ‘I’m sorry I was a schizophrenic bitch. Let’s talk about it in bed.’”

Mandy burst out laughing. “That’s a good one, girl.”

“Feel free to use it,” Katie told her.

“You know I will.”

“It’s more like ‘I’m sorry I was a schizophrenic bitch,’” Ava said, “‘but that doesn’t excuse you lying to me.’”

“He lied to you?” Mandy asked, then looked at Katie. “Why you tellin’ her to get back with a lyin’ skank?”

“Yeah.” Ava crossed her arms and tilted her head with a smirk. “Why?”

“Because he’s not a skank, and he didn’t lie,” she said, then turned to Mandy. “This guy is melt-in-your-mouth hot. He’s got a college degree and his own business. They were friends when they were kids—”

“We were not friends,” Ava said, “and he pretended to be something he wasn’t.”

“No, he didn’t. He showed you exactly who he was. You just didn’t see it. The same way you blinded yourself to who Matthew was.”

An uneasy sensation trickled into her gut. “What?”

“He gave you all the clues—the late nights with his buddies, the recreational drug use, the way he looked at other women, the way he bailed on you at functions and took over in meetings. You saw it because you told me about it, but you didn’t put one and one together to get two.”

Ava opened her mouth to argue, but memories were flitting in and out of her brain, making her realize Katie might be right.

“Matthew showed you he was a self-centered asshole the same way Isaac showed you he was caring and considerate,” Katie continued. “Isaac took care of you when he could have hurt you. He opened up to you about his guilt over his brother’s suicide. He let you help him in the shop. He took you to a home he hadn’t even shown his parents. Then he introduced you to the most important people in his life in a setting that would show you he was worthy. That’s Isaac the man, Ava. Not Isaac the rich kid he used to be, or Isaac the biker mechanic he is now. Just Isaac, the man.”

Now Ava was so confused, she couldn’t make sense of the truth. “Not telling me things he knew would be important is the same as lying.”

“No, no, honey.” Mandy shook her head. “Not telling you things because he doesn’t want to lose you? To me, that sounds like love.”

Ava’s breath caught. Her stomach clenched. She knew she’d been wrong, but maybe she’d been even more wrong than she realized.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about, girlfriend.” Katie fisted her hand, offering it to Mandy in a fist bump.

“You two make my brain hurt.” Everything about this situation with Isaac fell into too many shades of gray to analyze. She shook her head, sat back, and closed her eyes. “All I know is that I can’t debate this even one more time.”