Love on Lexington Avenue - Lauren Layne Page 0,13

the expected neutrals.”

“Like a Barbie dream house!” Audrey explained, already reaching for the brightest color options.

Claire gave Naomi a wide-eyed Help! look.

“We’ve got this,” Naomi said reassuringly, shoving a subtler set of colors into Audrey’s hand. “I’m thinking we’re going for fresh and feminine, right?”

Claire nodded, grateful her friend understood the vision. Fresh, to shake off the stale feeling a year of mourning had left her with. Feminine, because even with her new impulse project, there was one thing she wasn’t leaving up to whim and spontaneity:

She had no intention of sharing her home—or her life—with a man.

Ever again.

Chapter Four

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8

Claire returned home from her time with Naomi and Audrey feeling both a little mellow from the champagne and revived by the companionship.

Claire had always been a girl’s girl. Throughout high school and college, she’d prided herself in her ability to navigate among the cliques and have multiple friend groups. She’d been the “mom” in every group. Levelheaded and thoughtful, Claire was the one who always had ChapStick, a bobby pin, and breath mints. The one who’d handed out water at frat parties and held her friends’ hair when they’d ignored her water and ended up puking their guts out. She was the one who’d dispensed advice that perfectly straddled tough love and gentle.

When she’d married Brayden, she’d been extremely conscious of not letting her girlfriends fall by the wayside. Of course, it had helped that nearly all of her friends had similarly been married or in serious relationships. It had been great. For a while. Claire’s social calendar had alternated between wine and book club nights with the girls while the guys had poker nights and golf trips, and couple-centric dinner parties.

And then Brayden had died, and everything had just . . . changed.

Not at first. At first it had been . . . okay. Or as okay as the death of a cheating spouse could possibly be. When the news broke, Claire had been inundated with support, both the well-meaning and nosy varieties. She’d received more flowers than she had surfaces to put them on and had enough bagels delivered to fuel the carbo-load for all of the New York marathon runners.

Eventually, though, the invitations had stopped. While she still heard from her college best friends with baby updates and the occasional check-ins, Carrie and Melissa didn’t live in New York. Text messages, phone calls, even FaceTime didn’t make up for an in-person shoulder to lean on, and those had become scarce after Brayden’s death.

Her Manhattan friends, the group she’d once been the center of, had slowly disappeared. Claire knew it wasn’t malicious. She’d been in their shoes. When Kristen Seymour and her husband had separated, Claire had tried to include Kristen just as before, but eventually her friend had somehow sort of slipped away. Just like Claire had.

And if she were being honest, Claire couldn’t be entirely sure she hadn’t brought some of it upon herself. Had she pulled back? Changed? Or was it that her newfound cynicism just didn’t fit in around married couples?

Regardless, she wasn’t sure she would have survived this past year without Naomi and Audrey. Whether it was because of their shared experience with Brayden or just three women finding each other at exactly the right time, Audrey and Naomi felt more like sisters than friends, and had from the very beginning.

Case in point, Naomi was with Oliver now, but unlike Claire’s other coupled-up friends, Naomi hadn’t drifted away. If anything, their friendship had become more rock-solid since Naomi and Oliver had gotten together, plus there was an added bonus of Claire now counting Oliver as a good friend.

Claire was hanging up her keys on the hook by the front door when she heard a thump from upstairs, followed by a muttered masculine curse. She paused, half thinking about going upstairs to see if Scott was okay, but deciding better of it. If she went dashing after him at every crash and bump, it was going to be a long few months. It was already going to be a long few months, she realized as she eyed the pencil markings all along the walls on her way to the kitchen. Most were numbers, although the wall to her left simply had an unceremonious X.

Claire had just poured herself a glass of water and was in the process of setting the paint swatches she and the girls had settled on next to her tile samples when Scott came into the kitchen.

She glanced up