Free Falling for Fate by Caisey Quinn

happening live before my eyes. I am definitely not going back to work just yet. You and I are getting coffee. I need details, lady.”
     
    “O h God. Lord help me, I can feel it coming.” Gwen cringed while sipping her frothy latte and practically bouncing in the seat across from Fate in the small coffee shop just a block from where she had endured the public scene with her ex-fiancé.
    Fate sipped her iced coffee and nodded. “I walked down the stairs and heard them. Then I saw them.”
    “Gah! At your fucking rehearsal dinner! How did you keep from stabbing them? Or just going straight Carrie on them and burning the mother down?”
    Fate shrugged. “I was too stunned to do much of anything other than run.”
    “I would have lost my shit. All of my shit would have been lost. Seriously. One of them would probably still be on life support.”
    Gwen was entertaining to be around. She had a flair for the dramatic and everything she felt showed plainly on her face. Fate appreciated that in a person after learning that her best friend had lied to her for the better part of a year.
    “It’s certainly turned my life upside down. That’s for sure. We had all these plans. A seven-thousand-square-foot place to live. Now, I’m on my own and I’m not going to lie and say that it wasn’t tempting to take him up on his offer if only so I didn’t have to return to a tiny hotel room that reeks of sweet and sour chicken.”
    “Fuck that. No way, Fate. Nothing is worth letting someone treat you like that. I would have tackled your ass if you had tried to leave with him. The things he said, the way he acted as if he were doing you some big favor by moving past what had happened— ugh . It was foul. All of it.” She exhaled loudly. “He made my skin crawl and I didn’t even know the details yet.”
    Fate nodded in agreement. Gwen was right. But still…now her self-righteous breakup would cost her mom her medical care and that was a problem she didn’t currently have a solution for.
    “If you don’t mind my asking, what was he talking about when he said he wouldn’t pay for your mother’s medical care? Is she sick?”
    Fate’s throat tightened and her tongue grew heavier in her mouth. This was the part she didn’t want to share. Well, this and the part about her sexy, virginity-taking beach stranger.
    “Um, she was in an accident and still has some recovering to do.” There. That was mostly true. “He was paying for her to stay in a residential rehabilitation facility. But it looks like I’m going to have to figure something out in addition to working at Maxwell Medical if she’s going to get to keep staying there.”
    Lines appeared on Gwen’s forehead. “Jesus.”
    “I’m not even sure he could help me at this point. Pretty much every aspect of my life is a hot mess right now.” She let out a small, choked laugh. “And here I thought I had it all together.”
    “Do you believe in fate, Fate?” Gwen’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Because I do.”
    Fate side-eyed her new friend, unsure as to where this conversation was headed. “I guess so. Lately, it doesn’t seem to be on my side though, so maybe my name is the universe’s idea of irony.”
    Gwen moved her latte aside. “I don’t mean to go all Boho fortune teller on you, but I think you were meant to get on the wrong train this morning, and I think you were meant to be on that elevator when you were.”
    “Ohhkay, and why’s that?”
    Gwen beamed at her. “So you could meet me. We bonded. We’re like this now.” She crossed her middle finger over her index one.
    Fate smiled and shook her head. “I have to say… So far, meeting you and that chicken gyro wrap-thing have been the highlights of my stay in New York.”
    “See?” Gwen lowered her voice and leaned in. “In all seriousness, I couldn’t live with myself if I thought you’d go back to that asshole. And I might just be the answer to all of your problems.”
    Fate arched a brow