a wine list?” Kara asked, settling herself into the chair.
Daisy nodded. “I’ll grab the menu and be right back.”
“So, this is my spot.” I proudly looked around. Just a few feet away, a preseason football game was displayed on mute. We were seated adjacent to the cigar room. The speakers overhead blasted neo soul music.
Daisy returned with my drink and a menu for Kara. She ordered some fancy-ass wine I’d never heard of while I vibed to the music. I handed my credit card to Daisy. “We can start a tab.”
“The first round of drinks are free.” She jerked her head to a group of men playing dominoes at the corner table near the door.
“I’m sure Cam wouldn’t mind a little freebie,” Daisy joked.
“Oh, um, we aren’t together anymore.”
“Oh!” Her blue eyes looked genuinely aggrieved. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. You two were always so . . .” She shook her head, as if she finally remembered her manners. “Well, anyway, enjoy the first one from the guys. Let me know when you’re ready to select your cigars, unless you brought some from home.”
“Nope. Come back in a few minutes and we’ll be ready to go back to the cigar room to make our selection.”
Daisy gave me another pained look and then escaped as if the hounds of hell were on her heels.
“So that wasn’t awkward at all.” Kara broke the silence.
“Right,” I sighed. “Obviously, this used to be me and Cam’s spot.”
“Then why did you choose this place?”
I tapped my fingers on the table. “Cam and I did a lot of things together. If I avoided every place that reminded me of him—of us—I’d be a hermit. I’ve got to get back to living.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Speaking of living, you need to get your ass back out there.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “I don’t have the time. I study, work, then study some more.”
Daisy returned with Kara’s wine. Kara skipped out on the sniff and shake routine she usually did with every glass of wine she drank, and gulped down the drink in two swallows.
I signaled Daisy and pointed to Kara’s empty glass. “Another.”
We didn’t say anything, just listened to the music and absently watched the game. Daisy returned with another round of drinks, and soon after we picked our cigars. I had a good buzz going by drink number two and a third of the way through my Cohiba cigar.
Kara broke our easy silence. “I’m sad, Raina,” she softly confessed. “I’m thirty-three, and I’m separated from the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. And I don’t know how to help him. The only friends I have are you, the girls, and my wine group. The wine group is debatable. They’re a bunch of obsessive psychos.”
“Worse than you?”
“Yesss,” she hissed. “So if I’m walking around like ghost lady, I just . . . I don’t know what to do. The only thing I can focus on is this exam in a few months. And the crux of it all is that I’m terrified of this test.”
“Girl, as much as you’re studying, you will ace it.”
“That’s the problem. I’ll ace it and then what? What’s next? I love my career, don’t get me wrong, but I want to have a life outside of expounding on wine complexities.” She tugged the ends of her recently hacked hair. “I wish I had my life together and could move on like you.” She waved in my direction. “But to be honest, when Darren cracked, so did I. And I don’t have anyone to hold me up.”
Kara had mentioned on our hike that Darren was going through some traumatic issues that stemmed from childhood. Kara decided to fall back, as he’d asked of her, but she was devastated that he hadn’t wanted her help.
“I’m not fine, either,” I confessed.
Kara snorted. “You don’t say.” Her lips tipped at the corners, forming a small smile. “Girl, I know you aren’t okay. But you’re doing better than me. And you have that little hottie brother of yours helping you along the way. Speaking of, what’s up with that? How come you never mentioned you had a brother to the girls? Does Nikki know?”
“No. Just a dark family secret Ma and I never discussed. When Daddy left us, he ran off to start another family. He got some other woman pregnant, then sent the divorce papers through the mail.”
Kara gasped. “That bastard.” She leaned forward. “Tell me. Tell me