“Tara! Where are the potholders?”
I paused for a moment, staring back at myself in the bathroom mirror, mascara brush in hand. Finally, I replied, “Aren’t they in the drawer?”
“If they were, I wouldn’t be asking!” Nate yelled back sarcastically. I rolled my eyes.
“Try the laundry room, then; they were filthy and I might have washed them!”
I didn’t hear anything else from him, so I assumed he must’ve found them. Resuming my primping, I carefully coated my lashes in mascara, then studied my appearance. It was satisfactory. Plus, we weren’t having an especially fancy evening by any means. Nate was grilling steaks and making his famous herb-roasted potatoes, and our friends Kennedy and Taylor were coming over to hang out for the evening. Kennedy and I had been friends since high school, and when she’d introduced us to Taylor a couple of years ago, he and Nate went beyond the obligatory “our-women-are-friends-so-we-have-to-be-too” civility and quickly found common ground in sports. Since then, Kennedy and Taylor had tied the knot, and Nate and I regularly hosted them at our house for an evening of friends and fun.
When I heard a car pull up, however, Nate’s voice rang out to me again. “Um…I think only Kennedy is here.”
“What?” I put away my makeup and trotted down the stairs, peering out the front window. Indeed, it was only Kennedy in the vehicle. “That’s weird. Do you think they’re coming separately? Maybe Taylor got hung up at work or something.”
“I don’t know, but he’s going to owe me for this steak if he doesn’t show,” Nate joked, heading back outside to check on the grill.
Kennedy exited her car and approached the front door. I opened it before she even knocked. “Hey!” I said brightly. “Where’s Taylor?”
“Nice,” she replied sardonically, stepping through the threshold into my house. “I’m your best friend, but the first thing you ask about is Taylor.”
“Oh, relax,” I said, grinning. She grinned back.
“No, he’s apparently not coming. Something about a complicated customer or whatever,” she said with a shrug.
I pulled a face. “Well, that sucks. I don’t want you feeling like the third wheel.”
“I don’t. I feel like a free woman,” she joked back.
We headed into the kitchen, laughing, and I poured us a glass of wine. I didn’t bother asking Nate if he wanted any; he wasn’t a wine drinker, and he’d broken into the twelve-pack in the fridge the minute he’d fired up the grill. We leaned against the counter and chatted idly for a few minutes before Nate opened the sliding patio door and entered.