eyes, as I stored my purse in its proper place under my feet. “Yes, Kasey, I’m aware that I need to tell my best friends that I’m getting divorced.”
“You should have told them when it happened.”
I sighed; this was getting exasperating. Kasey had been giving me a hard time about keeping secrets ever since they called us for boarding. I’d never thought I’d be getting divorced. When I said I do, I had every intention of I Doing forever. It was more embarrassing than I expected, harder to talk about with the people close to me. I could ramble about my personal life to the grocery store bag boy, and I had, but I was finding it near impossible to open up to my friends.
“It’s not so easy to talk about. Not to mention I’ve been a little busy. I was doing all those pesky things like kicking Patrick out, finding a lawyer, and convincing my mom that I did not need to move in with her.” I clicked my seat belt into place, tightening it. “By the time I had a moment’s peace, this trip was only a few weeks away. Girls’ Trip is for drinking and debauchery, not divorce talk.”
“Well, you found the time to tell me.”
I snorted. “No, I didn’t. You just happened to be on the phone with me when I walked in and caught the man I’ve been married to for the last five years nailing his brand-new secretary.”
I side-eyed the guy who’d sneezed relatively close to my shoulder.
“You found out by default.” I looked over at one of my favorite people in the world. Kasey and I met in college at a party our freshman year. We bonded over our love of oldies music and ice-cold beer. Right now, her big brown eyes were full of love and support. I knew she was right, but I was in no way, shape, or form about to ruin our yearly girls’ trip with my soon-to-be divorce. “Please drop it for now, Kasey. I need this weekend, and I need it to be drama free.”
My three best friends and I took one trip a year together, one. I wasn’t about to spend the next three days doing anything other than drinking, dancing, and laughing with my tribe.
“I’m about to take my antianxiety drops so I can make it through this damn flight.” I held up the little brown dropper bottle in my hands. “I swear I miss the old days when we were broke college kids and couldn’t afford to fly anywhere.” I put two drops of the holistic calming meds under my tongue, ignoring Kasey’s laughter. She knew I hated to fly, they all knew I hated to fly. But here I was, yet again, on another flight.
Kasey gasped beside me, then started to shake my shoulder. “Livi, look, is that our pilot? I swear I saw that guy at the bar this morning when we were drinking breakfast.”
“Stop. It.” I narrowed my eyes trying to determine if she was kidding.
“I’m serious.” She was smiling though, fighting back laughter, so she had to be joking.
“Serious pain in my ass. Now leave me alone. You aren’t funny.” I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. Within a few minutes I started to feel a little woozy, like I’d drunk half a bottle of wine. Hmmm this was a nice way to fly. Within another sixty seconds I felt like I’d switched from wine to tequila. These holistic people knew their stuff.
“Livi? Livi.”
I opened one eye when I heard my name. “What now? Did you see our flight attendant doing lines in the bathroom?”
“What? No. We landed. We’re here.”
I opened the other eye, looking past her out the little round window, amazed that we were on the tarmac. “Really? I slept through the whole flight? I’m gonna be pissed if we haven’t even taken off yet, Kasey, I swear—"
“We’re really here, weirdo. You’ve been asleep for like three hours.” She started digging around in her purse, grabbing her phone and turning it on. “You’re terrible company.”
I sat up straighter, stretching my arms above my head. “Sorry. Either I was tired or those are some badass holistic meds my yoga instructor gave me.” I felt so alive and refreshed, I needed to send her limber ass a thank you note.
We waited until it was our turn to get off the plane, which seemed to take an eternity. When we rounded the corner, following the signs to baggage