“So how about a BBQ at our place? We can celebrate all the things! Your champagne birthday, winning the Cup, and the end of the season,” Violet suggests.

Lily pulls up her calendar on her phone. “What about next weekend?”

“That’s perfect!” Violet turns her smile on me. “Plus it’s a holiday weekend, so a BBQ is essential anyway. We can eat burgers and lactose-free ice cream and cake and all the delicious things. And I need to wear a bikini and take pictures before this baby takes over my body!”

I don’t have the heart or the desire to argue. Besides, with the trades still looming, I have no idea if this is the last birthday I’ll get to celebrate with all of our friends. Will one of them will be somewhere else next year? I don’t want to miss out on making memories, even if they might hurt in the future.

“Okay,” I tell her. “Let’s do it.”When your best friend is married to one of the top earners in the NHL, she can pull together a pretty damn sweet party in a very short span of time. Violet hires a caterer and buys all the decorations online.

Darren must ask me a million times, in a hundred different ways, what I want for my birthday. What I really want is for him to stay in Chicago and not be traded to Vegas, or anywhere else. But he doesn’t have control over that, so I tell him I don’t need anything and the party is enough.

My birthday begins with orgasms from Darren and a promise that he’ll see me later. He leaves my bed, much to my dismay, just after ten in the morning and is replaced by Violet.

“I brought breakfast!” She wrinkles her nose as she takes a few steps into my bedroom. “It smells like Darren and sex. I vote we eat downstairs.”

I roll out of bed, not caring about my messy hair or the discarded lingerie—I’m wearing one of my many shorts-and-tank sleep sets—as I follow her downstairs.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, especially since the party is at your place.”

“Are you kidding? I wanted a couple of hours of you-and-me time before I have to go sharing you with all our friends. Remember when we used to eat pints of ice cream and have Hoarder marathons on your birthday?” She turns the bag over and two half-pints of Ben & Jerry’s roll onto the counter. Her smile is questioning. “We don’t have time for a marathon, but we could do an episode or two.”

I don’t know why I’m suddenly emotional, but I throw my arms around her.

When we finally release each other, Violet puts her hands on my shoulders. “I know a lot has changed recently, especially with me and Sunny both being pregnant, and then Lily and me finding out we’re half-sisters—which is, like, so daytime soap opera, by the way. But there’s only one you, Char. We’ve been best friends for almost a decade. We went through frosh week together and survived for Christ’s sake.”

I laugh at that. “You’d think we would’ve learned shots were bad back then.”

“Academic intelligence isn’t the same as social smarts. How the two of us made it through college without a criminal record is beyond me.” Violet snort-laughs and then grows serious. “No one is ever going to replace you, Char. When we’re old and saggy and we have to yell to hear each other, we’ll still be best friends.”

Of course that’s the moment I burst into tears, because as much as I don’t want to admit it, those are exactly the words I need to hear. And that sets off a whole chain reaction in which Violet starts crying, too. So we hug some more and cry a bunch like sappy idiots.

“I’m probably going to cry a hundred times today because my hormones are insane,” Violet sniffles.

“At least you have an excuse.”

Violet and I spend the next two hours eating crap and half-watching TV. It’s good to have a little time with just her before the party.

My mom calls around noon to wish me a happy birthday, and she promises to visit soon. I’m a little disappointed, especially since she uses the reality show she auditioned for as the reason she’s so busy. But then, we never made a big deal out of birthdays at The Ranch, likely for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. Afterward, it sort of stayed that way, so the fact that I’ve agreed to a party at all is kind of a big thing.

Early in the afternoon, Lily and the rest of the girls come by to pick me and Violet up—apparently Alex dropped Vi off this morning. I don’t need an overnight bag because I’m staying the night at Darren’s, so all I bring is my beach bag with my bathing suit, sunscreen, and a hairbrush.