“Menthol spray.” She nudges past me. “Get in the shower, unless you want me to drag you outside and hose you down. We have a schedule to keep, and I’ve timed everything so that we’ll be home right before the game starts.”

I want to argue, since the game doesn’t start for another three hours, but instead I do what I’m told. Also, it’s not that warm out, and being sprayed down with a hose seems a lot like something that would happen in prison.

The hot water feels heavenly, so I stand under the spray for a long time. When I’m done washing off the past few days of melancholy and sour cream and onion chips, I turn off the shower, wrap myself in a towel, and open the door. Stevie nudges Violet out of the way and thrusts a pile of clothes at me.

“Where did those come from?”

“Your closet. We weren’t sure if the hills of clothes lying all over the place were clean or dirty, so I felt like if it was hanging up, it might be safe.”

“Okay.” There’s a very solid chance something on a hanger would be clean. Or cleaner than anything lying on the floor or draped over the back of a chair. I dress quickly in a shirt I haven’t worn in three years and a pair of equally old jeans. But they don’t smell like onions, and I don’t either anymore. I brush my teeth and rinse with mouthwash to help with the bad breath, but my mouth still tastes like onions. Minty ones, though.

When I’m done putting myself together—I definitely look better, and I feel better too—I step out into my living room and freeze. “What’s happening here?”

There’s a woman I don’t recognize in my kitchen, cleaning it.

“Queenie, this is Aurora. Aurora, this is Queenie.”

She flashes me a bright smile and extends her hand. “Mr. Kingston requested I come by to help clean up.”

“King sent someone over to clean my house?” I ask no one in particular.

Aurora scans the absolute mayhem. “He intimated that you’ve been busy as of late and the assistance would be helpful.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay.” I motion to the corner of the room, where my easel and canvases are stacked. “Just don’t touch those, please.”

“Of course not. Mr. Kingston already informed me as such.”

She sounds like Mary Poppins; thankfully, she looks like a slightly younger version of my grandmother. I hope she hasn’t had to deal with our pile of sex sheets. I wonder if King does those himself. It seems like something he might take care of so someone else wouldn’t have to.

“Okay, well, thanks so much, Aurora, for tackling this. We need to get a move on if we’re going to make it to the spa on time for our mani-pedis.” Violet consults her phone.

“Mani-pedis?” I parrot.

“Kingston set up appointments so we could all go together. He thought you might need a little pampering, and we were inclined to agree.” Stevie motions between herself and Violet.

“Kingston set this up?” I don’t know why I’m even surprised by this. It’s 100 percent something he would do.

“Yup, pretty sweet, huh?” Violet grins.

And because I’m an emotional mess, I burst into tears.

“We got you, girl.” Stevie gives my shoulder a squeeze, grabs a few tissues and my purse, and steers me out the door so I can have my breakdown without Aurora witnessing it.

We pile into Stevie’s SUV; I’m in the passenger seat, and Violet sits in the middle seat in the back so she can stick her head between the seats. “You’re staying off social media, right?” Stevie asks as she pulls out of the driveway.

“Uh, well . . .” I chew on the inside of my lip when they both give me a What the hell? look.

“Oh God.” Stevie and Violet share a glance in the rearview mirror. “Queenie, rule number one is to never, ever look at social media.”

“I wanted to see how bad it was,” I mutter.

“Social media is a cesspool of angry bunnies and jealous bitches. We’ve all been raked over the coals at some point, right, Stevie?” Violet says from the back seat.

Stevie glances in the rearview mirror. “Yuppers. My ex took a video of me and Bishop kissing—”

“Mouth fucking. Kissing sounds sweet, and you two were fucking each other’s mouths with your tongues and pretty much dry humping each other. In public.”

“Would you like to tell the story?”

“Sure. My version is always more exciting anyway.” Violet props her fist on her chin and launches into the story of how Stevie and Bishop met and ended up together. Including how the mouth-fucking video came to be.

“The point is, all of us have had to deal with at least one social media shitstorm. I mean, Alex told the entire hockey-watching nation that we were just friends, when that clearly wasn’t the case. We mouth fucked all over the damn place. And we were dating. And he’d asked me to move in with him—while playing naked Scrabble, but that’s another story. What I’m saying is that we get that it sucks, but you’re not alone, and you don’t have to hide from the world and wait for the dust to settle.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Have you met me?” Violet points to herself. “I’m a walking embarrassment. I can’t go anywhere without saying something regrettable. Alex has to script everything I say when we do interviews—which I hate, by the way—and I sound like a robot. And even then there’s a good chance I’ll accidentally say something I shouldn’t. You got married when you were eighteen, and that douche nozzle screwed up the divorce papers. Everyone in the hockey-watching nation knows that Corey is an asshole and that his fiancée is a loon. Unfortunately, that combination makes for great headlines.”

What Violet is saying makes sense, and I know all of this will eventually blow over, but it’s more than that. It’s all the other pieces that are the problem. It’s the fact that I got married on a whim in the first place, that I’ve been relying on my dad for a job, that I’m still living in his house, that I’m too afraid of failing to even bother trying to do what I really want. Because one of the people who was supposed to encourage me liked to tear me down instead. And now Kingston’s family has a horrible impression of me.

The mani-pedis are a nice distraction from the shitshow that is my life. Stevie and Violet tell me all kinds of embarrassing stories, which definitely makes me feel better about everything. I’m still stressed about the meet-the-parents situation, but at least I have a sounding board that isn’t my dad and my boyfriend.

When we get to Violet’s, plans change a little. Her brood and Lainey’s son, Kody, are in the theater room, already watching the game with Lainey, who couldn’t make the mani-pedi session.

Violet’s oldest, Robbie, is reading a book in the back row with his feet propped up on the back of the seat in front of him. Maverick is watching the game at the front of the theater, and so is Kody. Well, Kody is sort of watching, but he keeps looking over his shoulder at River and Lavender, who are sitting at a round table covered in art supplies. River hands Lavender crayons, his attention half on her, half on the game.

When Lavender realizes her mom is home, she pushes back her chair and rushes over, wrapping herself around Violet’s leg.

“I hope you still love me this much when you’re a teenager.” She tugs on her ponytail.

When Lavender spots me, she abandons her leg and rushes over to me, giving me the same hug treatment. Then she takes me by the hand and tugs me toward the door.

“Where are we going?”

“My room! I show you my wall!”

“Do you have new art?”

She nods and pulls me along, practically skipping. When we get there, I can see she’s been busy with paints, and of course she insists that we make something together. Violet comes up and tries to persuade her that I’ll come back another time, but Lavender won’t hear it, and I’m more than happy to lose myself in finger painting for a while. I miss all of the first period of the game, but it’s 100 percent worth it. Lavender is extremely chatty when she feels safe in her element, and her art room definitely provides that.

She tells me all about the things she loves: that she wants a pet cat but her dad is allergic and that she likes dogs but they lick their bums and then your face, and that’s gross. She also tells me that her friend in her art class has a dog, and it ate his favorite stuffie, and he cried.

When we’ve finished our masterpiece, it’s already eight o’clock, and I have to remind her not to rub her tired eyes with her paint-covered hands.

We wash up, and she gets ready for bed on her own, although it looks like her pajamas might be on backward. Violet puts her and River to bed. Kody’s already passed out on one of the mats on the floor, and Maverick is sprawled across the front seats, eyes popping open every once in a while, but it’s clear he’s ready for bed. Robbie seems to have disappeared, likely to his room.

We set ourselves up in the back row with drinks, and the girls fill me in on what I missed while Lavender and I were finger painting.

Violet drops down into the seat beside mine a few minutes into second period. “Thank you so much for indulging Lavender: she would spend all day in that room if she could, and she adores you.”