Huge Deal - Lauren Layne Page 0,70

a Christina Aguilera song Kate hadn’t heard in at least a decade.

“Right,” Sabrina said. “A reminder would be good.”

“Hey, Lara,” Kate called over to the living room. “If you’re going to dance, move that champagne glass away from the edge of the table, hon!”

Lara did so, lifting the glass carefully with two hands the way one would hold a chalice, and then setting it in the very center of the coffee table before flinging her hands over her head in a ta-da, I did it! gesture.

“Good job,” Kate said as Lara went back to doing some very jerky dance moves.

Sabrina perused the open wine bottles on the counter before settling on a Sauvignon Blanc, pouring herself a glass. She held the bottle up toward Kate, who extended her glass for a top-off. She wasn’t entirely sure it was the same white she’d been drinking before, but she was just tipsy enough not to care.

“How do we have so many open bottles for four people?” Sabrina mused.

At Lara’s request, the bachelorette party had been kept exceedingly small. As an FBI agent, Lara was careful about who she cut loose around. Kate was honored to be among the select few and also relieved that she didn’t have to deal with small talk. Normally, she could host a party, whether it be her own or her best friends’, like nobody’s business.

Lately, though? Lately, her brain had no room for talk of the weather, or the latest movies, or oh-em-gee, what is Justin Bieber up to now?

For the first time in a long time—maybe ever?—Kate wasn’t up to dealing with other people’s business. She was drowning in her own.

“It’s good to see her happy,” Sabrina said with an indulgent smile at the wildly dancing Lara.

“It really is,” Kate said. “Ian, too. He’s been like a little kid at the office lately. The other day he brought in candy for everyone. Candy. Not like fancy chocolates, but some bag of assorted crap. He went around to every office saying, ‘One for you; one for you,’ like a little kid.”

Sabrina laughed. “God, I’d have killed to see that. Was he drunk?”

“Yeah, on love,” Kate muttered.

She expected a caustic remark from Sabrina, who’d known Ian since they were kids and who was a pretty die-hard cynic. And then she remembered . . . no longer. Sabrina had joined Lara and Ian in the happily-in-love club, and though she hid it better than Ian, Sabrina was dopily drunk in love with her new husband. And Matt with her.

And just like that, Kate realized that she, the one who’d not so long ago had her kids and pet names picked out and had once doodled Kate Dawson on her notepad in a moment of weakness, had become the group’s resident cynic. No, not cynic, she corrected. She was just . . . smarter now. A little less blindly trusting that it would all end happily ever after.

“It’s good to see you happy, too,” Sabrina said. “Or at least easing back that way after your dad.”

Kate’s head snapped up, and she found her friend watching her. “I still miss him,” Kate said quietly, the pads of her fingers on the base of the wineglass, spinning it round and round on the counter without taking a sip.

“Of course you do,” Sabrina said matter-of-factly. “You always will. But right now is the worst, and I’m glad you have someone by your side to help you through it.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed, and Sabrina’s narrowed right back.

“What, you think I didn’t know? That we all didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

Sabrina shook her head. “You’re a terrible liar. Even worse at playing dumb. You and Kennedy are doing it.”

“Shh!” Kate glanced over to where Gabby was trying to teach Lara some sort of sashaying dance that looked like it would be complicated sober, much less way past sober.

“Oh please,” Sabrina said. “Gabby lives on another continent and couldn’t care less about our love lives, and Lara already knows.”

“How?” Kate asked, aghast.

“Well, because I ran into Kennedy this week, and he was giving off the I’m getting regular sex vibes. The exact same vibes I got the second I saw you today. Which I suspect is exactly why you’ve been avoiding us all week. Or maybe that’s just because you’ve been too busy humping?”

Screwing, Kate mentally amended with a little smile.

“Ooh,” Sabrina said, leaning in. “I’m liking that smile. That means you’re not just getting regular sex but good sex.”

“Yes to the latter; no to the former,” Kate said.