“If we’d known she would’ve ended up with him, I would’ve told you to bug her instead of me!”

Power suit playfully punched torn jean’s shoulder. “You’re my best friend, stupid! If you can’t call your best friend whenever a creep knocks on your door, who can you call?”

Indeed, if you had a best friend, you’d call her when the world came crashing down around your ears, wouldn’t you? Or even if you just needed help dealing with a stalker?

“Ouch! Ease up on the amazonian moves, Em! And yes, of course you should call me.”

“Sorry. Not sorry. And you should call me, too. The fact that we now live thousands of miles from each other instead of across the street doesn’t matter, right?”

“Right,” torn jeans was responding, massaging the muscle on her arm that her friend had struck, just as the bartender slid their cocktails to them.

“Ladies, here you go. Not just a Bulleit, this time. Manhattans. Hope you like it.”

“Give this dude a medal,” power suit purred as they each held up the Manhattans the bartender fixed up for them and clinked glasses. Torn jeans swirled hers and then took a sip. “Or a twenty. Damn, this is…”

Powersuit’s rejoinder was emphatic. “OMG, this shit is so good!”

Torn jeans reached for her wallet. Nodding with her chin at the bartender, who’d made his way to a group of guys huddled together at the other end of the bar, she grinned at her friend. “I don’t care that our drinks are free in this lounge, Em — that your dad was paid an obscene amount to build, by the way, based on what you told me — gotta tip our bartender for this.”

“I agree. Mmmm …  I wonder if we can get a couple to go?”

The two giggled, cracking up at another inside joke, jostling each other enough for power suit to end up nudging the lean figure who hadn’t been able to help but overhear everything they’d been saying over the last twenty minutes. The young woman was sipping from her wine goblet, when ….

“Em, watch it!”

Power suit righted herself, but not before she’d nudged the young woman’s elbow accidentally.   “Oohhhh!”

Power suit gasped at the sight of the wet spot spreading on the erstwhile pristine shirt underneath the soft blazer of the young woman. The well-cut jacket had somehow escaped getting splashed, but the white shirt underneath looked thoroughly soaked.