My phone buzzed in my clutch.
I pulled it out like a lifeline.
Evan: Need a rescue?
Just seeing his name loosened something tight in my chest. The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it.
Almost done, I typed. Promise.
Tessa’s gaze snagged on my screen like a hook. Her smile didn’t falter, but something in it hardened, the warmth turning brittle.
“Who’s that?” she murmured lightly, like a joke. “Finally seeing someone?”
“Just a friend,” I said, dropping the phone back into my purse.
Her smile tightened. Lace over steel. “You’re thirty-five, Lena. You can’t keep saying that forever.”
The women around us tittered the way people do when they want to show they’re on the right side of a joke. My mother’s fingers touched Tessa’s forearm in a silent plea—tone it down—but she didn’t pull her back.
