Free The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers by Lynn Weingarten Page A

monster. He was projected so big that he was the size of an actual person. One by one she was making the spaceman knock off the monster’s heads. The screen flashed. The monster screamed and fell off the cliff. The game was over.
    “Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeyat,” Leather Bracelets said. “We’ve been trying to do that for like a month.”
    Barefoot Lying on the Couch sat halfway up, “JACK! JAAAACK!! You owe Gil a hundred bucks.”
    “Damn it!” a voice called from the other room. Lucy realized then that Olivia and Liza were nowhere in sight.
    Gil laughed and shook her head.
    Liza walked back in from the kitchen. Behind her was a tall guy wearing jeans and a short, pink bathrobe with frills around the neck. He was holding two frosted martini glasses, both full.
    Leather Bracelets looked at the martinis and raised his eyebrows.
    “Liza asked for one,” Bathrobe said. “She came in here and said, ‘Where’s my martini?’ Just like a mean husband from the fifties.”
    “Dude,” said Sun-bleached. “That wasn’t asking, that was demanding.”
    “She’s a demander,” said Bracelets. “A demandstress.”
    But they were smiling. What was Lucy supposed to be doing? Whatever it was, she was quite sure that hovering in the doorway was not it.
    “Where I’m from,” said Lying on the Couch. He had a slight southern accent. He crossed his legs at the ankles and stretched out his toes. They were very long, like fingers almost. “Where I’m from we just call that a bitch.”
    Liza smiled. “Where you’re from, honey, they’ve just started walking upright. I don’t think they’ve gotten around to inventing words yet.” Then she raised the glass in his direction, like she was toasting him and they all laughed. She brought the glass to her lips and tipped it back.
    “How is it?” Bracelets asked. The glass was empty. “Was it . . . ?”
    Liza wiped a few droplets of liquid off her lower lip with her middle finger. It looked both suggestive and mean. “Vile.” She licked the tip of her middle finger and gave him back the glass.
    “Speaking of . . . things,” said Bathrobe. He turned toward the big video screen where the end-of-game sequence was still going—now the spaceman was standing on a pedestal with fireworks exploding behind him while one at a time hot lady characters walked up and tossed their bras at him. Bathrobe shook his head slowly, then turned toward Gil and bowed low. He pulled a fistful of bills out of his bathrobe pocket and held them up over his head.
    Gil just laughed. “I don’t want your money, Jackie.”
    Bathrobe/Jack shook his fist in the air. “No, no, you have to take it. Otherwise I will feel like a bet welsher. Which is even worse than being broke.”
    “Take it, Gil,” Liza said. “Or these assholes will make fun of him forever and the pharmaceuticals he’ll need to get over it will cost way more than a hundred bucks.”
    Bathrobe/Jack grinned and stuck his tongue out at Liza through his teeth.
    “The girl’s right though,” said Lying on the Couch. “We assholes will do that.”
    Gil took the crumpled-up bills. “Okay. Okay, okay.” But she was shaking her head.
    Lucy leaned her head against the door frame. She did not even need to know what she was being tested on to know that she was failing.
    Olivia walked slowly back toward the kitchen. “Come on, Gilly,” she said. Gil got up and followed; so did Bracelets and Sun-bleached and Liza. And then it was just the three of them, Lucy in the doorway, Bathrobe/Jack holding the martini, and Lying on the Couch.
    There was paint chipping on the door frame; she picked at it with her pinky. A little flake came off and she pressed it into the pad of her thumb with her nail. It split in half. No one was saying anything. She looked up.
    Bathrobe/Jack was watching her. He rubbed the top of his head. “We haven’t offered anything to our guest.” He tipped his martini toward her. Liquid sloshed out onto the floor. “Maybe