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from me? If anyone was the long-suffering, pathetic girlfriend, it was me with Seth.”
    “I suppose that’s up to me, isn’t it?” She slips an apron on over her head. “Are you going to help me get dinner on the table or berate me for my social life? I should remind you that you used to berate me for my lack of social life.”
    “Watching sci-fi movies with engineers is not a social life.”
    “In Silicon Valley, it’s absolutely the only one that matters. Except for maybe, gaming.”
    She throws an apron at me and grimaces. “Change the subject.” Her tone is foreboding.
    I’m less concerned with my hair than I am that Kay noticed my fashion choices were lacking. Changing the subject suits me.
    “Is it true you invited Seth and Arin for dinner?” I set the apron on the counter.
    “Come on, Ashley, he and Arin have been married for a long time. You and Kevin have been married a long time. They have their second child on the way, and you used to be friends. We’re all Christians and I wanted the old group back together. You dated Seth. Kevin dated Arin, so what? You can’t let the past bother you.”
    “No, because that would be weird, right?” I mean, is it me?
    “You don’t have to be so melodramatic about it. So you dated the guy. It’s over. Life moves on.”
    “I get this. I’ve moved on, but hanging out with Seth and Arin just feels…I don’t know, forced. Awkward.”
    “Well, it’s Seth. It felt awkward when you were dating him.” Kay shrugs. “It was like that at first with Matt after, you know, he went out with your prepubescent sister-in-law, but eventually, I realized I could obsess on Matt’s one mistake, or look to the good he brought into my life.”
    “Matt brings good into you life?” I pop a grape into my mouth. “I’m intrigued.”
    “If Matt hadn’t taken Emily out that time, would you still feel the way you do about him?”
    “It wasn’t taking my sister-in-law out that bothered me, it was the way he lied about it and sort of dated the two of you at the same time. I just don’t trust him.”
    “Luckily, you don’t have to trust him. At the time, no one was exclusive. That’s what people do when they’re dating. They test the waters.”
    Uh, Matt tested the waters, all right. Like an ocean full.
    “If it doesn’t bother me, Ashley, I fail to see why it bugs you. Your life would be so much easier if you would just move on.”
    “I think you’re better than him, that’s why.”
    “I thought you were better than Seth. Did you ever listen to me?” Kay pulls out a bag of carrots and dumps them into a silver colander in the sink. “In the words of a famous creepy director, ‘the heart wants what it wants.’”
    “Are you really going to quote a creeper to make your point on love? Because…just eww.”
    “He may be a pervert, but he’s right in the sense that the heart isn’t logical. Of course, I know better. It’s like people telling you God’s enough—that He can fill all your needs. And He can, I understand that, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t get lonely. That I don’t stare at couples in church longingly.”
    “I know, but Kay being alone beats being in a—”
    She cuts me off. “Do you know with all my years in the singles’ group, how many of you I’ve seen coupled together like they’re getting on Noah’s ark? All that time, I sat at the base of the gangplank and forty years came and went.”
    “So that’s why Matt’s hovering? You’re lonely? Get another roommate! Remember how fun I was?”
    “You never faced that, Ashley. Not really, not the fear that you’d be alone in the nursing home and that you’d never have a child. It’s hard to come home to an empty house every night unless you take the time and effort to plan a dinner party.”
    “I think that’s why people get cats.”
    “Ashley!”
    “I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I only meant—”
    “Just never mind. If I want to spend time with Matt, it’s