“Yeah. I mean, yeah, I’m from the Bay Area. I work for the mayor of Berkeley.”
The other three women burst out laughing. She looked around at the four of them with raised eyebrows.
“What did I say?” Was this going to be like junior high, where people would corner you and laugh in your face?
Robin took a sip of her sangria and grinned.
“Oh, we’re just laughing because we know Lucy isn’t going to leave your side for the rest of the night.”
Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Don’t worry, they’re making fun of me, not you. See, I keep talking about quitting my job as a teacher and going to law school, and the law school at Berkeley is supposed to be great for the kind of law I want to do. But just because you work for the mayor and live there doesn’t mean you’re an expert on the law school . . . does it?”
Alexa held her glass out to Heather for a refill.
“Maybe not an expert, but I did graduate from Berkeley Law School, so . . .”
Lucy crossed the room so fast she almost knocked into Heather.
“Tell me everything.”
After Alexa went inside, Drew got his share of teasing from Luke and Brendan.
“Good God, you should see the way you look at her,” Luke said. “It’s like me when I’m looking at . . .”
“A really fat sausage?” Brendan suggested.
“Oh, shut up, both of you,” Drew said, after Luke and Brendan recovered from their peals of laughter.
“No, no, but it’s cute,” Brendan said. “Look at you—you keep glancing toward the house to see if she’s coming back and trying to pretend that you’re just looking at your drink.”
Drew shifted his eyes back in their direction. Okay, fine, they caught him looking for her. He was just trying to make sure she made it back outside okay. No, that excuse didn’t even work in his own head.
Eventually, Kat, another doctor at the hospital, came over to them.
“Hey, Drew,” she said. “Did I see you running on the beach yesterday? I shouted to you, but if it was you, you didn’t answer.” Kat lived not far from him, and they went running together sometimes.
“Around noon? Yeah, that was me. I guess I was preoccupied. Sorry I didn’t say hi.” He glanced toward the house again.
“Huh, what could you have been preoccupied with this weekend?” Brendan said, between bites of hot dog. “Or should I say, who?”
“You two are such assholes,” Drew said. He didn’t know if they heard him through their laughter.
“Enough law school talk,” Heather ordered. By this time, they were all sitting around the kitchen table. “Let’s talk about something more interesting. Alexa, how did you meet Drew?”
Hmm, which story was she supposed to tell? They hadn’t really discussed that.
“We met at a wedding.” She took another sip. Oh well, if Drew didn’t want her to tell the truth, he should have told her their cover story before she’d had all of this sangria. “Sort of. In the elevator a few days before his ex-girlfriend’s wedding, actually. He needed a date, and I was free that night, so . . .”
The whole table cracked up, Alexa included.
“Oh, that’s such a Drew story,” Robin said. “Meets a girl in an elevator, convinces her to go with him to a wedding that night.”
“It wasn’t that night. It was . . .”
Emma broke in.
“Was this that wedding in May? Oh man, I was supposed to go with him to that wedding, but my dad had surgery so I couldn’t go.”
Wait, this was that Emma? Had everyone at this table dated Drew?
“Has everyone at this table dated Drew?” Shit, she probably shouldn’t have said that out loud. But at least now she’d get an answer.
“Not me!” Lucy said. But Heather, Emma, and Robin all rose their hands. Huh.
“He’s a sweetheart,” Robin said. “We had a great time while it lasted.”
Everyone else at the table nodded.
“How long did . . . Why did it end?” Alexa asked them. What was she supposed to do, not ask these women who had all dated Drew that, when she was both tipsy and had been thinking about that very topic for days? She did not have that much willpower.
Heather was the one who answered her.
“At least for me, it was when it was going really well. I was starting to think . . . well, whatever, I’ve been over it for a while. But after about two months, he came over one night and gave me a little speech about how it was best to end things when we—”
“Were still friends?” Emma jumped in. “Yeah, I got that same speech. He was really sweet about it, though. Even sent me flowers afterward, to make sure there were no hard feelings.”
Robin laughed.
“I got the same speech, also after about two months, but no flowers. The flowers must be new.”
Heather jumped in.
“It’s a testament to what a great guy Drew is that we all still like him. And one another. He obviously only dates great women.” She stood up and refilled everyone’s sangria cups.
“So what did you put in that sangria anyway?” she asked. The subject changed to cocktail recipes. Alexa did her best to chime in with her favorites as her mind was swirling.
Maybe she didn’t want to get those answers from Drew after all.
Drew almost went into the house to find Alexa at least three times and stopped himself each time. Finally, he saw her walking across the lawn with Lucy and Robin.
He and Kat wandered over to them. When he put his hand on the small of her back, she jumped.
“Hey, it’s just me.” She’d probably been on edge from Mike irritating her earlier. “You having fun?”
“Yeah.” She took a step away from him and looked at the group around them. “It’s great.”
She reached her hand out to Kat, that smile from the wedding on her face again.
“Hi, I’m Alexa.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Drew jumped in. “Kat, this is Alexa. She’s here visiting this weekend. Alexa, this is Kat. She’s also a doctor, and a sometime running buddy of mine.”
“Great. So nice to meet you, Kat!” Alexa took another sip of her drink and turned back to Lucy and Robin.
Was something wrong? It felt like something was wrong.
“What were you ladies up to inside for so long?” Brendan asked as he came up to the group.
Robin, Lucy, and Alexa all laughed. Alexa was looking at them, not at him. Why wasn’t she sharing this laughter with him?
“Oh, just chatting,” Lucy said. “Well, drinking and chatting, anyway.” She turned to Alexa. “Oh God, Alexa, I forgot to tell you that story about how two of my students got arrested—it tested every instinct I had when they told me about it, because I wanted to laugh so hard but I knew I shouldn’t.”
As Lucy went on to tell a long story about her students and a cemetery and getting chased by security guards into blackberry bushes, Drew watched Alexa. She was totally relaxed with the other women, smiling and laughing without that fake smile that he hated on her face. That smile had been his sign to come over when she was talking to Mike.
But she still had that tense look around her eyes. When he touched her arm, she turned toward him, but her body was stiff.
“Everything okay?” he said in a low voice.
She flashed a smile, but it didn’t reassure him. It didn’t have that glitter of joy hovering behind her eyes like her real smiles usually did.
“Fine,” she said. “Want to get me more sangria?”
When he came back with the sangria, he brought a plate of chips and guacamole for them to share. This time when he joined the group he slid an arm around her waist, but she stepped away from him.
“Oh look, Heather’s bringing out the cupcakes. Let me go see if she needs help.”
So she walked off to help Heather with the cupcakes, leaving him with one arm empty, and one hand weighed down with a full plate of chips.
“Those for me?” Carlos asked from behind him.
“Hey, man, when’d you get here?”
Carlos reached for a handful of his chips.
“Just now. Why are you looking so forlorn? Where’s Alexa?”
He gestured with his empty hand.
“She’s over there, asshole. Helping Heather do something with cupcakes . . .” He paused as he saw Alexa and Heather talking to three men he didn’t know. “I guess Heather introduced her to some more people.”
Carlos looked at him for a long moment but just nodded.
“Cool, I’ll go say hi. Where are the drinks?”