It was just that for some, they made their way to happy.

That just wasn’t for me.

“Vi,” I prompted when she didn’t say anything. She’d barely moved, hadn’t taken a bite, even though I’d been blathering for the last twenty minutes about all that had been going down with me.

Except for Ryker’s warning about my neighbors, I didn’t leave anything out.

“Vi,” I snapped when she still didn’t say anything.

“Quiet,” she returned. “I’m trying to stop myself from slapping you upside your head.”

Loved my girl.

Feb was my big sister and I loved her too. But Vi was my bestie, the best one I’d ever had, and I’d knock your teeth out if you said she wasn’t the best friend there could be.

Even so, not real big on her telling me she wanted to slap me upside my head.

I narrowed my eyes. “Uh…what?”

“God, Cher!” she cried angrily, then leaned in to the table my way. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“It isn’t your problem.”

She leaned back, glaring and speaking. “Yeah. That’s the part that makes me want to slap you upside your head.”

“I’m tellin’ you now,” I pointed out.

“You know,” she started conversationally, then hit me with her best shot, and it was a doozy. “It doesn’t feel real good when I got a BFF who’d race to my side at the drop of a hat if she got even the inkling that I need her—and I know this because she’s done that— and she doesn’t let me do the same for her. Of anyone, Cher, in all the shit that’s gone down in this ’burg with people who mean something to you, you know, bein’ a mom, you freakin’ know it’s no hardship when you’re called on to look after somebody. It’s an honor. I cannot imagine why you’d take that privilege from me.”

I sat back in my chair like she’d slapped me.

“And yeah,” she went on, “everyone’s talkin’ about you and Merry. Everyone. But we’re not all sittin’ around gabbin’ about how Cher’s caught herself up with a man who’s in love with another woman or how Merry picked the one woman in the ’burg who he’s gotta handle with care and no one knows if he’s got that in him. We’re worried. About both of you.”

Before I could race out and buy a cat o’ nine tails which I could use during my five-hour-long session of self-flagellation, she kept going.

“But Merry was right. You should tell Ethan about that crap his dad and stepmom are pulling. You should tell your mom. You should tell everybody. I can’t believe you haven’t done that already. He needs looked after and he’s your kid. In anything, it’s all hands on deck. This crazy lady thinks she can be a better mom and has got no problem taking your boy away from you all the way down to Missouri, that bitch needs to think again. Bottom line, Cher, any woman who thinks that way about another woman’s kid is sketchy. I wouldn’t let Ethan anywhere near her.”

“Right,” I whispered, though I’d come to that same conclusion myself already.

“And if her husband doesn’t have the balls to set her right, he shouldn’t get anywhere near Ethan either.”

I pressed my lips together.

“As for Merry, you fucked up this morning, big time.”

I looked out the window, my eyes so dry they hurt. “Yeah I did.”

“And I hate to say this, because I want good things for you any way you can get them, but that might not be bad.”

The change in her tone, her voice quieting, made me look back to her.

She put her hand on the table and slid it a couple of inches toward me.

“He never got over her,” she said softly.

“I know,” I replied.

“It’s too soon after her getting engaged. Merry should have known better.”

“I should have too, Vi. But this is far from a perfect world. Shit happens.”

She nodded her head, her eyes now kind on me. “Yeah.”

I picked up a Pringle, then I threw it back down.

“He’s too good of a guy,” she started, and I looked again to her. “He had reason to be pissed this morning, even if you were right. No way he should have woken Ethan and all that. You went off half-cocked, but a lot of shit is happening. He’ll get that. He’ll get it sorted in his head. Give it time. Give him time. He’ll come back.”

“I should apologize,” I told her.

“You should and maybe you shouldn’t,” she returned. “He needs time about a lot of things. He needs to get over his ex. He needs to figure out where he’s at and what he wants. In the end, you two will be friends again, of that I’m certain. The rest, it’s him who has to be in the right place, and he’s not right now, Cher.”

“You’re right. He needs to get in the right place, and when he does that, find the right woman.”

Her brows drew together. “You say that, and I don’t know for sure what you’re sayin’, but I think you’re sayin’ that right woman isn’t you.”

I flipped out a hand. “Vi, the cop and the stripper? This ain’t Hollywood. A hookup like that doesn’t go beyond just a hookup in real life.”

She screwed her eyes up at me. “Now you’re makin’ me want to throw this awesome sandwich at you.”

“Vi—”

She leaned into the table again and snapped, “Shut it.”

I nearly burst out laughing.

Vi was as sweet as pie. She could hold her own, and she’d been through some serious shit, but she was sticky sweet.

Those two words were channeled from her badass husband.

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and you’re the coolest woman I know. Heck, half the time I’m around you I wanna be you.”

I slammed back in my chair that time, I was so rocked by her words.

“Everyone thinks so, Cher. The first time I met you, you were in everyone’s face, shouting this is me, which really meant back off, this coming from every word, deed, gesture, stripper shoe, and miniskirt. But the last couple of years, you mellowed out, found out who you really were, and came into you. You dress cool. You act cool. You’re all…” She flicked her hand around in the air my way. “Edgy and shit.”

I felt my lips quirk.

She kept semi-ranting.

“You hang with the cops at their end of the bar, fuckin’ this and motherfuckin’ that, and they act like you got a desk in the bullpen right next to theirs. You hang with the bikers at the pool table, and they watch your ass and stare at your rack like starvin’ men who entered a room with a buffet. Morrie told Cal straight up he, his dad, and Darryl always gotta keep one eye on you when the bikers are in the bar or they reckon one of ’em’ll knock you out, fling you over the back of his bike, and spirit you away.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Why would I bullshit you? Cher, you’re the shit and everyone knows it. That is, everyone but you.”

“Feb’s the shit in an edgy way. You’re the shit in a sweet way. Rocky’s the shit in a classy way. Dusty’s the shit in a together way—”

“And we’re all taken. You’re the shit in a Cher way.”

I took a page out of my kid’s book and rolled my eyes.

She slapped her hand on the table and I rolled them back. When I saw her irate, pretty face, I nearly choked on the laughter swelling up my throat.

The laughter stopped right in my gullet and I felt a choking feeling for sure, but in a different way when Vi spoke again.

“He did what he did, honey. He did it. No one blames you. No one looks down on you. Everyone gets he did what he did and part of what he did he did to you. All they see now is a woman who had the absolute worst happen to her heart and you didn’t give up. You kept going. You made your life better. You got better for your son. You’re a good friend, a great mom, and an amazing woman. That’s all anyone sees. I would not lie to you, Cher. What happened to you would destroy nearly anybody. You didn’t let it destroy you. People don’t look down on you. They admire you.”

Swallowing hard past the lump in my throat, I looked back out the window.