“Hey, Stacie,” Maddie managed to say before she found herself in a bone-crushing hug from a very inebriated former classmate.
“I was telling Beverly just the other day I hoped you would come,” Stacie Frios slurred. “You poor thing. How are you holding up? That must have been such a shock, finding all that out about your husband, huh?”
The people in attendance around them got very quiet, watching and waiting for Maddie’s reaction.
“It was,” Maddie murmured, raising her chin defiantly and glaring at Stacie.
But her high-school alum failed to see the warning signs and continued to barrage Maddie with questions.
“I mean, wow. He was gay? How could you not know that?”
Maddie flushed scarlet all the way to her hairline, extricated herself from Stacie’s grasp, and quietly said, “That’s enou
