Chapter 2

Elle

Hattie turns the wedding invitation over in her hands, eyeing it with loathing. “Do you want to burn it?”

I bite my lip. “I do, kind of, but I’m afraid I’ll regret it later, when I come to my senses and realize I have to RSVP.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You’re not seriously thinking about going.”

“Everything I’ve ever read online says I should go.” I affect an instructive tone. “ ‘It’s important to have an amiable relationship with your ex and his new wife, since they will be two of the most important people in your child’s life.’ Plus, if I don’t go, don’t I look like a total loser?”

I can tell from Hattie’s expression that I’m about to get an earful. “You’re seriously asking me that? He lied to you. He cheated on you. He left you. He only let eight weeks pass between your divorce becoming final and sending you a wedding invitation, and you’re asking me if you look like a loser if you don’t go to the wedding? Hell no, you’d be a spokesmodel for every woman in her right mind. ‘Fuck that, Big Asshole, no fucking way I’m going to your wedding.’ Unless—”

She tucks her long, dark hair behind her ears and looks thoughtful. “Unless you can go with a really hot date. Then it might be worth it.”

I scoff. “Sure. I’ll just pull one of those out of my back pocket.”

“Let’s think. I’ve gotta know someone…”

Hattie, in fact, knows everyone, but the truth of the matter is that we live in the ’burbs, where single men are few and far between.

She sets the invitation back on the coffee table and I push it as far away from me as I can. When I saw it in my stack of mail, it only took me a split second to recognize what it was. My hands and feet went ice cold and I couldn’t breathe. Then I opened it and saw their names side by side, gold text on ivory card stock, below a gold-leaf bride and groom. I almost threw up.

Thank God Madden was occupied playing with the new kid next door. I stumbled back to the house and called Hattie, who was over here ten minutes later with a bar of dark chocolate and a bottle of red wine.

Since Trevor left, Hattie’s been my rock—she and our friend Capria, who couldn’t be here today because she’s at some kind of select soccer playoff thing with her oldest daughter. Hattie and Capria are both divorced, too.

I’m ashamed to admit now that before my life imploded, I didn’t give other people’s divorces much thought. It wasn’t like when someone’s spouse dies and everyone brings food and writes sympathy cards. I don’t think I would have admitted this aloud, but I think I secretly believed divorce was a faux pas you should try not to draw attention to. Now that I’m on the other side of that equation, having gone through my own divorce, I know better. My personal opinion? People should bring you food and flowers. You need your friends more than ever when your marriage falls apart.

When Hattie and Capria heard that Trevor and I had split, they brought meals and wine and chocolate and lots of hugs. The first thing Hattie asked when she showed up at my door was, “Are we celebrating or mourning or a little of both?”

“D, none of the above: righteously pissed and nursing wounded pride,” I told her, and she laughed and hugged me again, and said, “I remember that phase, too.”

I’d had no idea that divorce came with such a wide spectrum of emotions, everything from crushing grief to raging anger.

These days, the big emotions are still lurking in the background, but I’m starting to want my old self back. Fearless, bright, happy Elle, the one who took contentment for granted. I see signs of her, peeking in around the edges, and I want to issue an invitation.

Part of me thinks if I can be a big enough girl to go to Trevor’s wedding—to be his partner in parenting and as much of a friend as two exes can be—maybe I’ll find that woman again.

Hattie has drifted toward the window. “I hope your new neighbor fixes that place up. It’s such a dump. Oh, cute. Madden and the other boy are playing some game with a football and a Wiffle ball bat, and Madden is laughing.”

“Score.”

Madden’s been having a tough time since the separation. He misses seeing his dad on a daily basis. Sometimes he’s angry—snapping at me for no reason or being sullen—and sometimes he’s sad, moping around, unable to settle into any activity. I do everything I can—board games, movies, outings—but some days are just bad. I’ve been hopeful that having a new neighborhood friend his age might help bring him out of it. Cheering up Madden is part of my campaign to reclaim my life, too.

“It’s supposed to be a single dad, right? Single dad and kid?”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. Haven’t seen the dad yet, though.” I head toward the window to peek out at Madden.

“Oh. Oh, my.” Hattie’s voice swoops.

“What?” I nudge her over to make room.

“You need a hot wedding date, right?”

Two very hot guys are moving furniture into the house next door. One is tall and broad-shouldered, with a full beard and mustache—very mountain man. The other is boy-next-door handsome, with rumpled light-brown hair and one of those perfectly proportioned male bodies—not too tall, not too short, not too muscly, not too skinny.

“Well, hello. You think one of those guys is my new neighbor?”

“There was another one, too. You just missed him. Tall and dark. Your type.” She leers at me.

“Shut up.”

She’s still staring out the window. “You ever think about calling that guy?”

She’s referring to the totally-out-of-character rebound sex I had right after the divorce papers were signed. I picked him up in a bar, which is so not my thing, but my friends had convinced me it was time to get back on the horse, and they were right. The guy I hooked up with was tall, dark, and broody, as unlike my ex-husband, Trevor, as it’s possible to be, which may have been why I said yes when he offered to buy me a drink. And why I kept saying yes.

“He made it very clear he doesn’t go back for seconds. And besides, I was such a dork that night, there’s no way I could face him again.”

“Too bad.” Hattie knows: the sex was amazing.

I frown. “It was just the circumstances. The things that made him hot as a bar pickup wouldn’t translate to real life. He’d probably turn out to be a jerk.”

“They always do.”

“Amen to that, sister.”

Moment of silence for ex-husbands…

Hattie snaps her fingers. “I have a brilliant idea. Let’s bake cookies and you can take them over tonight. Then you can meet your new neighbor…and wedding date.”

I have to admit, it would be nice to have a date to Trevor’s wedding. My showing up with a hot date wouldn’t even ripple Trevor’s pond, but showing up by myself—or chickening out completely—would just feel wrong. And even if Trevor doesn’t give a crap what I do with my sex life, I want him to at least confront the fact that I still have one.

Sort of. Aside from that one act of rebound sex, it’s been a barren year. But the rebound sex did make me determined to get back in the saddle. It reminded me that sex is too good to give up, even if I do plan to quit counting on men for anything other than orgasms.

“Anyway, regardless, we should make your new neighbors cookies. I mean, what’s the alternative? You want to sit here and stare at that invitation?”

“Hell no.” The less time I spend thinking about Trevor’s wedding, the better.

“So? Let’s bake.” Hattie drops the curtain.

We’re elbow deep in cookie dough when I hear the back door flap open with enough force to smack it into the opposite wall. I sigh. Madden. I’ve asked him a million times, but he’s not the best at being careful with stuff. I’ve mostly learned to take it in stride.

“Mom! Mom! This is Jonah! He’s moving in next door!”

The two boys, muddy from the knees down, explode into the kitchen. Jonah’s got longish dark hair that hangs in his face and brilliant blue eyes and looks vaguely familiar, like I know him from Madden’s school. Eve—my Realtor friend—didn’t know where they were moving from, so it might be somewhere in town.

“Mom, can Jonah sleep over here tonight? He likes to play Battlefront and baseball and football and I’m going to teach him how to play my Jukem and Minecraft card games. And can we watch Cars 3 and will you make us popcorn?”

That might be the longest and most enthusiastic speech that Madden has made since Trevor moved out, and there’s no way I’m saying no.

“Sure, if it’s okay with his dad. Hi, Jonah. It’s really nice to meet you. Welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Madden’s mom. You can call me Elle, as long as your dad is okay with you using first names with grownups. And this is my friend Ms. Rivers.”

“Hi,” says Jonah politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Come on come on come on, let’s go play Jukem,” says Madden, and he and Jonah exit the kitchen in a flurry. I call after them, “Shoes off!” but it’s probably too late. That’s okay; I need to vacuum anyway.

“That was so stinkin’ cute,” Hattie says. “How crazy is it, how fast they make friends? A sleepover, and they’ve just met.”

She smirks at me, and I throw a wad of paper towel at her.