I nod approvingly. “This is why we’re best friends.”

She sets the box on the counter, drops her purse, and holds out her arms. “Come to Momma Marley. How are we?”

I gratefully accept the hug. “We’re a wreck.”

“About Mom and Dad, or the boy?”

“Both,” I admit. “Although with the divorce, I’ve more or less managed to pep-talk myself into handling it like an adult. It sucks, but I’ll handle it. Andrew, though . . .”

“He hurt you.”

I lift a shoulder. “Mostly I just feel like an idiot. That entire time I was falling so hard, practically planning our wedding, and he was busy helping other people figure out how to arrange their assets before they leave their spouse. It makes me a little queasy.”

“Sit,” Marley orders, opening my fridge and pulling out a bottle of wine, and then fetching two glasses. “Have you talked to him since the breakup?”

My stomach clenches at the word breakup, although I don’t know what else you could call it.

“No,” I mutter into the wineglass she sets in front of me.

“And it was a breakup, not just a fight?”

I look up miserably. “I don’t know. I think so. I just want more than he can give, I guess.”

Marley’s not listening to me. She moves toward my kitchen table, where there are three huge bouquets of flowers.

She glances at me, pointing from one arrangement to another as she sips her wine. “Explain.”

I sigh and reach across the counter, dragging the cards toward me. I’ve read them a million times and it shows. One has a splatter of red wine, and another looks like it was soaked by tears. Maybe it was; I can’t remember.

“‘Perfectly ridiculous,’” she reads. She holds it up. “Um, what?”

“Andrew,” I say, my voice glum. “It was an inside joke. Worked for him the first time. Not the second time.”

She looks at the second card. “‘Georgiana. Please. Can we discuss this like rational adults?’” Marley winces. “Ouch.”

I snort. “That’s nothing. You should have been there when he told me to grow up.”

She reads the third card. “‘Don’t do this.’”

I watch as her face softens as she sets the card aside. “He sounds desperate, George.”

“No. Just inconvenienced, I think. I’m not behaving logically and it’s pissing him off.”

“So you don’t miss him?”

My heart twists. Of course I miss him. I love the son of a bitch. The problem is, I can’t survive being all the way in love with someone who wants to take it one day at a time.

I look miserably at my best friend. “I want more than he can give.”

“But—”

“Marley?” I force a smile. “I kind of don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”

She reaches out, squeezes my hand. “Say no more. We’ll have way too much wine, and eat too much pizza, and watch that Disney movie you love so much—”

“No,” I interrupt. “No Enchanted.”

“Really? You said it’s the one movie you could never get sick of.”

“I’m not sick of it, I just . . . it doesn’t have great memories right now.”

“Oh, sweetie, no. You let him ruin Enchanted?”

I rub my forehead. “I don’t remember letting him do anything. It’s just like all of a sudden he was there everywhere, all up in my business, invading every corner of my life.”

“And you loved it,” Marley says sympathetically.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “So much.”

“Did you love him?”

I nod, my eyes watering. It feels good to admit it to someone, even as it hurts.

Marley steps close and pulls me into a one-armed hug, leaving us both free to sip wine as needed, because she gets me.

“Okay, sweetie. I know it hurts so badly right now, but you have to promise me something,” she says.

“What?” I ask grumpily.

She kisses the side of my head. “Promise me you won’t give up on your lovey-dovey version of love. You’re the most optimistic, happily-ever-after person I know. If you can’t achieve that, none of us can.”

“But my parents—”

“Couldn’t make it work. But they’re not you, sweetie. Your happy ending is out there, I’m positive of it. Okay?”

I nod, because it’s what she wants me to do. And because I don’t want to say out loud what I’m thinking: that a happily-ever-after without Andrew Mulroney, Esquire, doesn’t seem happy at all.

Andrew

WEDNESDAY, 3:00 P.M.

“You’re acting like a piece of shit.”

Andrew looked up to where his brother was sitting in the waiting room. “I’m sorry. Is me trying to be here for you and your wife inconveniencing you?” he said acidly.

They’d been waiting for more than thirty minutes while Pam was with the doctor to find out if she was a match for a new fertility treatment. Andrew wasn’t quite sure he’d been invited when his brother had called to tell him about the appointment, but there was nowhere else he’d be. He’d rescheduled three meetings to be here.

Peter shrugged and folded his arms over the belly that wasn’t quite flat anymore. “Just sayin’.”

Andrew resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Such was conversation with Peter. He’d utter something vague at best, offensive at worst, and then you’d ask for clarification and he’d say, Just sayin’.

“So you and your ladybird broke up?”

Andrew had just lowered his head, but now he was forced to lift it again. “Ladybird?”

Another shrug. “Pam said you had a girl. A cute one. Cooked you dinner and fucked it up.”

Andrew smiled a little at the memory. It had felt so damn right to walk into his apartment and see her there. Even more so that she was talking to a member of his family. Loved that she’d disappeared to let him have his conversation, and that when he’d called her an hour later ready with an apology, he hadn’t needed one.

Because that’s who Georgie was. Good. Understanding. Easy to get along with. Forgiving.

But even she had her limits.

“What happened?” Peter asked. His tone sounded bored, but his eyes were on Andrew, and Andrew knew his older brother well enough to be sure that Peter cared about him; he was just emotionally stunted.