Chapter 209

Our fingers lingered briefly until she strode to the limo and got in without looking back. I stood on the porch until the taillights disappeared, then went inside. I picked up my glass of Champagne and finished the final sip. Before refilling it, I checked my phone.

"Katie has invited you to follow her Uber ride," read the notification on my lock screen. I clicked on it. She was only ten minutes away. It startled me at how quickly I went from the melancholy of seeing my girlfriends depart to the surge of anticipation that shot through me at Katie’s impending arrival. I’d given a lot of thought about how to handle the evening. On the bar sat a silver tray where I had pre-cut two dozen lines of cocaine. Katie was as insatiable for coke as Jess in her prime.

The other thing I knew about Katie, which had been a bit more difficult to figure out, was that she loved luxury. She had grown up in a well-off family but retained a fiercely independent streak that kept her