Chapter One

Aggie Portrero never should've slept with the guy next to her.

Not that he was just "some guy"; he was Kevin. Her next door neighbor and only real male friend, and as such, they had exchanged honest accounts of each other's exploits. In other words, if anyone knew better than to get in the sack with him, that person should have been her.

For three years Kevin listened to her vent about everything from PMS, business, and the latest jerkoff she'd dated; while she helped him plot his exit strategies from numerous relationships. They enjoyed the kind of intimacy old married couples had, but without the cumbersome matrimonial ties. But now Aggie really screwed up by calling him up semidrunk last night and then sleeping with him.

Aggie unstuck her shriveled tongue from the roof of her mouth, wincing at the nasty taste. Last night's multiple rounds of green tea martinis at Laurel had been the perfect tonic after another depressing day at her ailing boutique. Sitting in the white and black bar, under a glass chandelier, she'd been feeling chic and sophisticated with her dinner date.

But then, without warning, she thought, I've gotta call Mama tonight. All the air sucked out of the room as she remembered that she couldn't call her mama tonight, or any other night for the rest of her life. While her dinner date seemed to go on mute, a full-frontal assault of loss pelted her with the cold certainty that she couldn't take her mama to their weekly Sunday brunch, or fight about the latest loser Mama opened her door to.

Never again would she be embarrassed when people made faces at Mama's signature, skunk-striped hair, or because she