Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,65

she needed to take them away for a trip while I got my shit together. I got hourly updates and photos. The light in my boys’ eyes gave me hope.

If they could recover, find joy in life, then I should be able to. Or at least be able to pretend more convincingly.

Lydia’s visit helped. She was a salve to my soul that I didn’t know I needed. She’d called for an update somewhere around the first day of my wallowing and she must’ve heard something in my voice. I never was a good liar. Or maybe Alexis called her and that was the reason for the impromptu trip. Friends like her were unicorns, rare and precious. She’d flown across the world for less than twenty-four hours because she knew I needed it when she could’ve gone to see her family, other friends, spent some well-deserved time on a beach somewhere with a cocktail in hand.

Instead, she came here.

“Thank me by getting that man back into your life,” she said in response. “Thank me by not emotionally flagellating yourself over the fact you’re still alive and David isn’t.”

I grinned. Always the straightest of shooters, she was never one to weigh words down with any kind of softness. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

“And how about you do your best at staying alive so I don’t have to add any more survivor’s guilt to the list?” I tried to force brightness and joking into my tone but it was hard when it was a very real possibility that Lydia could lose her life doing something she loved.

“Not dying is always my main goal for any given day.” She winked and kissed my cheek.

I watched her get into the rental car, watched it drive away. Then I walked back into my empty house. What I didn’t do was glance next door.

I was planning on taking Lydia’s advice. Well, it wasn’t so much advice as it was an order. One I was going to obey ... eventually.

But first I had to get used to being here, in this house. In this tomb without my boys. It was going to happen one day—they were going to leave and it would only be me. No, I wouldn’t entertain the thought of a certain midnight man in this space with a permanence.

Not just because it felt wrong, felt like I was tempting fate to fuck me over once again. but because I needed to be okay on my own. I needed to find a way to exist in this house without dragging my sorrow around like a fucking dead weight. Needed to do at least some of the things I’d done before David died. Things I did for myself.

All I did for myself these days was inject poison into my forehead, drink too much wine, and fuck my next-door neighbor.

So I cleaned up the mess we left. Did laundry yet again. Showered. Made an event out of it all. Exfoliation. Lotions. A ten-step skincare routine. A home manicure. Taking care of myself in a way I hadn’t felt like I’d deserved lately.

Lydia was right. I’d been punishing myself because it was so much easier than actually trying to live my life.

It’s not like a manicure would magically cure all my grief and emotional trauma, but at least my hands would look nice.

I looked through my closet, trying to find the perfect outfit. What was the perfect outfit to seduce the hot, ex-outlaw biker who you’d been sleeping with for months but who’d broken all ties?

“Maybe Alexander Wang?” I muttered to myself.

It wasn’t just me putting on a new outfit. It was putting on a new skin. So I choose a simple, tight, black t-shirt dress. Lace up black boots that had a heel high enough to kill a man.

I piled my hair into a messy bun, one that looked effortless and chic but really took about twenty minutes of fussing and perfecting.

Same with the makeup. The goal was to look ‘natural,’ The perfect, fresh-faced, ‘she must have made a deal with the devil’ kind of natural.

I’d worn makeup out of necessity this past year, of course. To cover the dark circles, to have another layer between the world and me. But I’d never put it on out of a desire to look a certain type of way. To look attractive to a man.

David preferred me without makeup.

“My favorite version of you is when you first wake up,” he’d said one day. “Before you’ve really greeted