1

      The pretty girl in the tight ‘COED’ T-shirt leaned all the way back against the bar, so that her chestnut hair lay strewn out behind her across the white epoxy bar top. Straddled directly over her, his Vans balanced precariously on two bar stools, stood a shirtless guy with the most cut chest Gabriella Vechio had ever seen, a shot glass clenched tightly in his flexed abs. While the crowd cheered him on, he rocked his body over the coed’s, pouring the amber liquid into her open mouth. Southern Comfort splashed across her face and over her T-shirt, but the laughing girl definitely didn’t care. And neither did the rambunctious crowd.

      ‘Ho, man! Look at this guy work it!’ mused the DJ as he amped up the music. ‘Open your mouth wider, baby! Let’s see how much you can take in!’

      Gabby ran a finger along the sugared rim of her lemon-drop martini as she watched the scene play out across the restaurant. The thickening crowd was already three deep at the bar, and the indie-rock music that’d been playing when she and her friends had first sat down for appetizers was now a pulsating throb of Top 40. Beyoncé was singing/screaming so loud, the knives and forks still left on the table danced and tinked together. Even the waitress had changed — whether it was a different blonde or just a different outfit, this one was decked out in much higher heels and a much shorter skirt than the frazzled girl who’d served up quesadillas and Buffalo wings a couple of hours earlier.

      ‘So how long you think you’re gonna stay?’ Gabby’s friend Hannah asked with a frown as she stood from the table, gathering her purse. She cast a disapproving look in the direction of the circus that was still happening over at the bar.

      ‘What?’ Gabby answered, gesturing to her ear. It was getting impossible to hear. Friday-night happy hours at Jezebels always started out sort of mellow, but once food stopped being served alongside the Heinekens and cosmos, the crowd really built up. One of the reasons Gabby usually hated coming to Jezzie’s was because after nine the place turned into nothing more than a noisy meat market. And two days shy of her twenty-ninth birthday, Gabby was already old meat. At least in here, where she’d actually heard females over twenty-five called ‘cougars’ by other girls.

      ‘I said, so how long you gonna stay?’ Hannah repeated. ‘We don’t want to leave you all alone here. Not with this crowd …’

      Gabby shrugged and raised her half-empty martini at Hannah and her other friend, Daisy, who sat beside her, wide-eyed and still fixed on the ab man and the coed. ‘Just till I finish this, I guess. Don’t worry about me; I’m parked right across the street.’

      ‘I don’t know about you all, but I’m feeling mighty thirsty right now,’ Daisy announced as she, too, slowly stood to leave.

      ‘I wish I could stay, but I promised Brandon …’ Hannah started, hesitantly slinging her laptop bag across her shoulder.

      ‘Don’t be silly. I was gonna head home early anyway. I got a ton of shit to do tomorrow,’ Gabby lied. ‘You go and have fun, Han. Think of me when you do,’ she added with a wink.

      ‘Don’t you worry. Brandon won’t be having any fun tonight. I’m exhausted.’

      ‘Poor Brandon,’ Gabby laughed. ‘You’re not even married yet and he’s already not getting any on a Friday night.’

      ‘I’m easing him into July; the boy can’t say he wasn’t warned,’ Hannah returned. She looked uneasily around the restaurant again. ‘But I really hate leaving you here all alone, Gab …’

      Daisy’s eyes caught on Gabby’s. ‘Maybe he’ll come back,’ she mused with a sly smile as she wrapped a lilac cashmere scarf around her throat.

      Hannah smiled as if she’d just understood a dirty joke. Gabby felt the blood rush to her cheeks and she buried her face in her drink. All three of them knew who Daisy was talking about — the quirkily handsome recent MIT grad with the ginger hair who’d plopped down uninvited at the very same table last Friday night as happy hour was coming to a close. He’d charmed all three of them before the rest of his drunk entourage finally found him and pulled him away to hit another establishment down the block. He and Gabby hadn’t talked for long, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to get the guy out of her head. Jeff, his name was. And while she’d tried to convince herself that Mr Still Seeking Gainful Employment as an Electrical Engineer wasn’t the sole reason she’d suggested Jezzie’s to the crew for tonight’s girls’-night-out, she couldn’t deny he was a consideration. But she hadn’t expected anyone else to know that. She rolled her eyes. ‘Hope not. Please. I’m not waiting on him.’

      ‘Okay … then can I?’ Daisy replied with a laugh, unwrapping the scarf that went perfectly with her gorgeous trench coat and trendy Alice + Olivia booties. Everything about Daisy always went together perfectly. Her cute name, her size-two wardrobe, her beautiful, butt-length, espresso curls, her tanned Spanish complexion, her seductive chocolate eyes. ‘He was freaking hot! A little young, but you can still teach them things at that age, you know.’ She sighed. ‘And they can go for ever. Three times a night, if you’re lucky.’

      ‘You’re so bad,’ Hannah scolded.

      Gabby motioned to a seat next to her. ‘Be my guest, chica.’ But she didn’t mean it. In fact, she secretly hoped Daisy would just go. And for thinking that, of course Gabby felt super-guilty. Hannah, Daisy and she had been instant friends since freshman year in college when fate had thrown them all together in the same cramped dorm at U Buff — the University of Buffalo. And they’d stayed close through ten years of boyfriends, break-ups, bad bosses, family bullshit, illnesses, therapy, cross-country moves, cross-country moves back, and the general drama and angst that accompanied all of the above. But it always seemed to be Daisy who enjoyed most of the boyfriends and break-ups, as well as most of the drama. Daisy’s enduring popularity had never bothered her as much as it had this past year, though, when, for Gabby, just landing a stupid date had become about as challenging as picking all six lotto numbers in the same drawing.

      Back in college when the three of them were cute and inseparable and the nicknames were being handed out, they were known around campus as ‘Charlie’s Angels’. Hannah had been branded the Smart One; Gabby was the Funny One, and Daisy, the Pretty One. Even now, almost seven years after the final note of ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ had ushered the Angels officially into adulthood, the labels had held fast, and being the Funny One was no longer the compliment it used to be. Gabby’s hang-up, no doubt; Daisy was still the same great friend she used to be. But the fun, hard-partying Sex and the City lifestyle fantasy they’d all joked they were actually living was one day supposed to come to an end — with each of them landing high-powered husbands and popping out a couple of beautiful babies who would play together on the living-room floors of their fabulous homes while their mommies gossiped over lattes in the kitchen. Phase II, as Gabby called it in her head, was supposed to begin before the age of thirty. Or at least be in motion by then, which meant a serious boyfriend and hopefully a ring on her finger. Of course, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans, as Gabby’s mom liked to remind her. The Smart One had broken the mold and surprisingly landed the first fiancé. The Pretty One was still fielding multiple propositions