Chapter Eight

SYDNEY

Girls’ nights are awesome just being what they are, getting together with your friends and getting loud and laughing a lot, but throw in a theme and a very creative wardrobe courtesy of your best friend and they become a whole new level of awesome.

And tonight’s theme was eighties night.

I was in luck. Red hair teased out and sprayed stiff looked totally kick-ass on me.

I felt wild. I liked feeling wild. It made me think of Brian.

And I really liked thinking about him.

Kali got her mom to keep Cameron so she could come out with the girls, which included myself, Tori, and Shay, who looked like she stepped straight out of a Madonna video with her black mesh top concealing little of her black lace bra, a black tutu over black tights, spiked black pumps, and bangles covering her arms, all in black and metal. Her hair was teased high enough to reach heaven and she had star earrings dangling from her ears that touched her shoulders.

She looked rocker chic and could totally pull wearing stuff like that daily if she wanted to.

I told her that and she said she’d consider it, joking how much her tips would probably increase if she did just that.

Kali kept it simple with a Flashdance-style oversized sweatshirt that hung off her shoulder, black leggings, and leg warmers. She said she couldn’t fit into cute stuff yet because she still had fifteen pounds to lose from being pregnant with Cameron, which the three of us argued.

She looked hot and had great curves. And the men in the bar were taking notice of those curves every time she stood up, so she stopped hating what she was wearing about fifteen minutes into our night.

Tori and I stuck to similar looks—neon tanks and bright-colored tutus over fishnets, multicolored bangles on our wrists, and the highest heels we owned, mine being hot pink Jimmy Choos I’d purchased at the Nordstrom sale last year and cherished with all of my heart.

They were patent leather and made my calves look amazing.

And when you find heels that make your calves look amazing, you cherish them.

We were the only ones keen to eighties night at The 13th Floor, but we didn’t care how badly we stood out. We were having a great time, talking and laughing while drinking lemon drop martinis.

They were delicious, and I was sipping my second one while staying in the conversation going on around me and the one I was secretly having in my lap.

They’re sweet and sour. And I think Oprah’s favorite drink if I’m remembering that episode correctly.

2nd one?

Gearing up for 3rd.

Get a cab.

I smiled because I liked Brian worrying about how I was going to get home. I wanted him to care and he did, and he didn’t keep that from me either. He wanted me to know it.

I really liked that.

But I kept that smile on the inside as I looked up at Shay, who had just brought up Stitch for the second time tonight.

Once was a coincidence. Twice and you knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

She was thinking about him.

“Is there something going on with you two?” I asked, keeping one hand in my lap concealing my phone and the other on the stem of the martini glass in front of me.

Shay was always hanging around that window, leaning in and conversing like she and Stitch had loads to discuss, and Stitch didn’t look like he minded it too much even though the man was harder to read than a Chinese Bible and could’ve absolutely minded it. I just wasn’t reading him correctly.

He never showed much emotion and barely spoke two words if you asked him something.

“You say no and I’m calling bullshit,” Tori threw out, doing this pointing a finger at Shay.

Shay shook her head. The star earrings sparkled in the light when she did it.

“It’s not like that. He just lets me talk as much as I want and he doesn’t tell me to shut the hell up when I do it. It’s a nice change. I know I talk a lot. It annoys my brothers.”

“What do you two talk about?” Kali asked, disbelief in her voice.

“Whatever. Work stuff. Things I’m dealing with at home. The weather.” Shay shrugged and sipped her drink, then added, “And it’s just me doing the talking most of the time. He listens. He’s good at that. Sometimes he’ll comment on what I said or ask me something, but that’s rare. Most of the time he just keeps cooking while I ramble. It’s sweet of him.”

Kali looked at Tori. Tori looked at me. I looked from Tori to Kali to Shay, then questioned, “He’s sweet? Stitch is sweet?”

The man was edge and hard looks. Anything but sweet.

Shay looked between the three of us as if we’d all lost our minds in thinking Stitch was anything but sweet.

“He is. You talk to him enough, you’ll get it. His eyes are the warmest shade of copper I’ve ever seen.”

Kali looked at Tori. Tori looked at me. I looked from Tori to Shay to Kali, watching the lip curls on everyone minus Shay.

Oh, we all got it all right. Stitch could have the hardest looks and the most edge of any man living and breathing and Shay would’ve still had that opinion.

She liked him. She might not admit it right now, but it was clear.

“Well, in that case,” Kali chuckled. “I mean, copper eyes on a man who looks like he’s done time is seriously sweet. I guess I just don’t get to look at him close enough to see it. You’re always hogging that damn window and blocking the view.”

Shay crumpled up her cocktail napkin and chucked it at Kali’s face. They both giggled.

“You find another job yet, Sydney?”

I looked at Kali after her question, doing this shaking my head.

“There’s nothing available right now. I’ve only applied for one and never heard back. I’m thinking they found someone to fill it already.”

“Well,” Kali started, then pressed her lips together while looking at the other two girls and told me on a rushed breath, “I really don’t hope you find anything. Sorry. I know that’s awful but I’d hate to see you go. I love working with you.”

“Me, too,” Shay echoed with a warm smile on her crimson-painted lips.

I smiled at both of them, hoping to convey how much I enjoyed working with them as well, because I definitely enjoyed it, then I looked at Tori, who was remaining silent and had her head turned.

“Is that Nate?” she asked.

The three of us followed Tori’s gaze across the bar.

Dancers had wandered and were no longer obstructing our view of everything on the far side of the room, which was where Nate sat on a stool with a glass in front of him, his head lowered and his eyes either focused hard on something behind the bar or unfocused on anything.

He looked deep in thought, either way.

“Why does he always look so sad?”

I threw out my question to the girls not only because Nate currently did look sad in the middle of a kick-ass bar with great tunes, Beastie Boys currently playing overhead, which I was tapping my foot along to against the leg of my stool, but because he always looked sad every time I saw him, and even though that wasn’t a lot since he stayed shut up in his office more than he wandered the floor, his sadness wasn’t lost on me.

I knew he was looking sad behind that door, too. I knew it in my bones.

Tori looked down at her drink. Kali took a sip of hers, but her eyes were lowered to the table.

They were avoiding.

I looked across the table at Shay with expectant eyes and she read them, sighed, then gave me a look I knew meant I wasn’t going to love what I was about to hear.

But I still wanted to hear it. I was curious.

“I really don’t want to ruin this fantastic evening with a sad story, but I have a feeling you’re just going to keep asking me,” she said, dipping her head.

She was right.

I nodded.

“It’s really sad, hon,” Tori threw out. “Are you sure? I almost cried after I heard it the first time.”

Hearing that warning, again, I nodded.

“I want to know.”

Shay prepared herself to deliver this sad story, and she did that by finishing off the last bit of her lemon drop, then grabbing the attention of the nearest waitress and pointing at her empty glass.

Tori did the same and lifted hers, silently requesting another.

Shay then gave me her full attention again and did it most likely feeling the rush of the alcohol she’d just consumed.

I guessed it was going to help.

“Nate didn’t always used to be like he is now. Up until about a year ago he was really present around the restaurant and rarely ever spent time in his office. His wife was really present, too. Sadie. She was always stopping in and chatting up the staff even though she worked a lot herself. It didn’t matter; she made time. Then she got pregnant and was still coming around a lot, but we knew it was because she was so excited about being pregnant and wanted to show off her baby bump every second she got. Nate ate that up. He was crazy about her and even more crazy about her carrying his kid. It was really cute to see.”

I smiled but I did it cautiously because I didn’t want to get too comfortable with the idea of Nate being happy. This was a sad story, and when a pregnant wife is involved, I could only imagine how sad it was about to get.

Shay took a deep breath and continued.

“Marley was born, or Mo as we call her. She’s the prettiest baby ever. Seriously. Full head of blond curls and the biggest blue eyes you’ll ever see, holding so much expression it steals your breath. She looks just like Sadie.”

Kali shifted beside me, and I saw that her attention was now on Nate instead of where it was at the beginning of this story, the table.

Tori was studying Shay as I was, looking sad.

“Nate didn’t know. He was working all the time and doing anything he could to make the money they were losing with Sadie being out on maternity leave. I’m not even sure he noticed Sadie’s absence when she stopped popping in as much, then not at all because he was so busy. We all noticed it but honestly I figured Sadie just wanted her mommy-daughter time and I couldn’t blame her for that. Those baby years are important. But apparently Sadie was in a rough way and no one knew it. She was suffering and she was doing it alone, not confiding in Nate when she should’ve been and then it was too late. He couldn’t help her.”

“What happened?” I asked, my voice sounding tight like I needed to clear my throat.

“He went home after work one day and found Mo asleep in her crib and Sadie in the bathtub with an empty bottle of sleeping pills.”

I clamped a hand over my mouth, my breath bursting warm against my palm.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, cutting my eyes to Nate.

She had killed herself. Nate came home and found his wife dead and their baby girl asleep, completely oblivious to the state of her momma.

Pain circled my heart and folded in on it.

“I hate hearing that story,” Kali declared quietly, picking off chunks of the napkin in her hand. “I miss seeing Sadie around. It feels like yesterday she was showing us all her first ultrasound photo.”

“It’s been almost a year, hasn’t it?” Tori asked.

Shay nodded.

“Next month. I think that’s why he’s been locked in that office more than usual. He’s hurting.”

I looked from Shay back to Nate.

His head was still down, eyes still unfocused while his mind was on something heavy, I’d decided.

“What about Mo? Do you guys get to see her at all?”

“Nate’s mom brings her in sometimes. She watches her while he’s working,” Kali answered. “She still looks just like Sadie.”

“Prettiest baby ever,” Shay professed, smiling gently when she said it.

I couldn’t imagine Nate’s pain and the enormity of the pain Mo would feel when she got old enough to learn about her mother. It was almost too much to even think about. Adding on the pain Sadie no doubt was feeling and feeling it silently, suffering alone and having this beautiful life she created with her while she was suffering from it, most likely not experiencing those mother-daughter moments the way they’re meant to be experienced because she couldn’t let herself experience them; it was all too much sadness.

But Nate, his pain I felt deep and there was no option but to feel it. He was right in front of me.

“Gosh,” I breathed, pulling my eyes back to the girls. “That is such a sad story.”

Tori shot me a look.

“Told you.”

I stuck my tongue out at her.

She slapped the table, declaring enthusiastically, “Subject change!”

Shay made a motion with her hand that she wanted to be the one giving us our next topic of discussion. She looked across the table at me.

“Have you spoken to your husband yet?”

Tori groaned and shoved Shay’s shoulder.

“That is a terrible subject change,” she snapped.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

“We don’t have to talk about him in detail!” Shay argued while leaning closer to Tori. “I was just wondering if he’d done the right thing and reached out to her yet. It’s been, what, three weeks? He can’t call her and see how she’s doing since pulling the rug out?”

Shay looked at me after she was done speaking.

So did everyone else.

I didn’t want to talk about Marcus. I didn’t even want to think about him.

It hurt to do it.

I dropped my eyes to my glass, collecting sugar off the rim with my finger.

“Haven’t heard a peep,” I answered Shay, hearing irritated tongue clicks and a quietly muttered “asshole” I was certain came from Tori.

I lifted my head and looked around at the three of them.

“And I’ve decided I’m not reaching out to him. Ever. I don’t need to talk to Marcus for any reason besides what needs to be done to get this divorce final, and that hassle falls on him. This was his doing. He wanted this, so he can do all the work in getting that shit started if he hasn’t already. I’m not dealing with lawyers and spending my time getting paperwork together or paying costs if there are any. Let him eat it. Three weeks and he doesn’t even reach out once? No.” I shook my head, breathing heavily through my nose. “There is nothing I need to talk to him about anymore. Our finances have always been separate, so that’s not an issue. I took everything I wanted to take when I left so there’s nothing there I need to get from him, and whatever we bought together under the false pretense of sticking through thick and thin, for life, he can keep. I don’t want it. If it’s tied to a memory of him, I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Tori touched my hand. “Hon.”

“He lied to me,” I went on. “He said he’d love me forever, no matter what. He promised I’d never walk alone and then he walked away, and for whatever reason he had for doing this, one I still don’t know since he hasn’t reached out to me at all, I can’t for the life of me imagine that reason being big enough to treat someone who was in your life for seven years like a complete stranger. Like nothing. So no, I’m done. I’m not going to sit around and wait for Marcus to call me anymore. I’m going to live my life how I want to live it, and even though I’d already decided I was going to do this a week ago, I’ll say for effect that I’m doing this starting now. And you three are my witnesses.”

Tori squeezed my hand.

“Good for you,” Shay said, smiling favorably.

“Yeah, Sydney. I think that’s the right move,” Kali agreed. “Screw him. He doesn’t deserve you. You’re, like, the sweetest thing ever and he’s obviously a jerk. I’m sure you’ll find someone who deserves you when you’re ready.”

As if he knew how perfect his timing would be, my lap vibrated at that exact moment.

My hand curled around the device. I watched Tori get to her feet and snatch her glass off the table.

“I’m getting us all another round since my best girl just declared she’s living the life she wants to live now, and that’s worth celebrating, and also since our waitress sucks ass and decided she doesn’t want to serve four hot chicks who look better than she does on her best day.”

“Ouch.” Shay laughed.

Kali giggled and stood up, too, grabbing her almost empty glass.

“I’m joining.”

I watched the two of them walk away, then watched as Shay tugged out her own phone and started messing with it, giving me the go-ahead I was grateful for.

You get a cab?

Nope. I’m getting drink number 3!

How late you staying out?

Why? Miss talking to me?

Yeah.

I blinked and read that message twice. Then I read it again.

My belly warmed, flipped, then twisted.

God, that felt good.

I could slip outside and call you real quick.

Can’t talk now. Out with my boys.

Oh.

I didn’t hide my disappointment. I didn’t think it was fair since he didn’t hide wanting to talk to me.

Call when you get home. I’ll be up.

And just like that, my disappointment vanished.

He’d be up, waiting to talk to me. Wanting to talk to me. That felt better than two going on three lemon drops, and those felt good.

OK.

Get a cab.

We’re calling an Uber.

Good.

Glad you approve.

You being smart?

I’m being WILD.

I typed this smiling so big my cheeks hurt.

Right. Be Wild and call an Uber.

I giggled and looked up just as Tori was walking back over with Kali, both of them laughing about something while Tori carried a tray like I’d seen her do a million times at work, kept close and perched beside her shoulder and doing it with ease, this one covered in drinks ranging in size from the four lemon drop martinis to tiny shot glasses filled with different-colored liquids.

I was confused as to why she was carrying it. I was also confused as to why it was covered in shot glasses when I thought we were sticking with lemon drop martinis tonight.

She slid it onto the table and wasted no time explaining herself.

“That guy in the suit over there wanted to buy us drinks because apparently we look like a bunch of women who can’t buy our own drinks and needed his big manly wallet to come and save us,” she started, doing this while distributing a martini glass and a shot in front of everyone. “So I decided to buy us a shit load of drinks to show him none of us need a man to buy us anything, and I did this while also explaining to him that this is girls’ night and on girls’ night we buy our own drinks.”

She lifted her shot and turned her head.

The three of us followed, Shay even spinning around to look, and saw the guy in the suit staring at us with wide eyes like he’d just been told to go fuck himself.

I wouldn’t have put it past Tori to deliver that message.

“To girls’ night!” Tori cheered.

We all toasted to girls’ night before shooting it back, and we did it loud.

*  *  *

“Oh, my gosh. Where is this guy? My feet are killing me!”

Kali stopped walking on the sidewalk and held on to the lamppost, tugged off her heels with a groan, then continued the trek down York Street barefoot with her heels in one hand and her clutch in another.

We’d left the bar ten minutes ago after calling Uber twenty minutes before that, expecting to see our ride waiting by the curb since that’s where he said he’d be.

He wasn’t. Apparently the man who drives for a living got lost.

So now we were walking down the block a little ways in hopes of spotting him so we could all get home, which I was dying to do since I knew Brian would be waiting up for me and I couldn’t wait to talk to him more about anything and everything.

I loved our conversations. And now I knew he missed them when we weren’t having them.

The flip and twist was happening constantly as I thought about that.

“Maybe you should call him again,” Shay suggested beside me, giggling and dropping her head on my arm.

She was completely loaded. I was pretty certain we were all some level of drunk, but Shay was definitely leading the way with the most shots thrown back.

I felt great. Warm and a little numb all over. I wanted to lie on the sidewalk and gaze at the stars.

“He might be in front of one of these other bars and be waiting for us, like an idiot,” Kali pointed out, bringing us to a halt in front of a nameless bar I couldn’t focus on because the neon lights were too bright for me at the moment.

I squinted away and watched Tori slip out her phone and study it for a minute before dialing.

“Yeah, it’s me again. Where are you?” she clipped into the device, looking down the street and across it while she spoke.

“Are you kidding me? When? We stood out there for ten minutes waiting for you!”

I dropped my head back with a sigh.

“I’m drunk. I can’t track your location on a map! And you were supposed to text me when you arrived!”

“I really hate to pump and dump,” Kali admitted quietly, grabbing my attention and pulling my ears off Tori’s conversation. She bit her lip. “Do you think I’m a horrible mom for going out tonight?”

I shook my head. “No way. You’re so pretty.”

She smiled.

Shay giggled either because of us or something else. The girl was laughing at everything.

“Just head north on York Street and we’ll walk back. You can’t miss us.” Tori ended the call looking irritated as all get-out, then motioned for us to spin around and instructed, “Go back. He’s been waiting for us.”

“Ugh! What a jerk. He was supposed to text!” Shay hissed.

“Men are such idiots with technology,” Kali commented.

I pinched my lips together so I wouldn’t scream at the top of my lungs about Brian being awesome with technology.

It was torture keeping his awesomeness a secret.

We were walking back in the direction of the bar with Tori leading the way when she stopped dead without warning.

Shay and I stumbled a little, bumping into each other since we were the two walking mostly behind her. Kali was off to the side.

“What?” I asked, then moved in front of Tori when she didn’t react to my question, not with a response or even a jerk of her head. “What’s going on?” I pressed further.

I followed her gaze to the parking lot we were standing in front of, and I couldn’t be sure because I was drunk and also because there were a lot of vehicles filling that lot, but it looked like Tori was shooting daggers specifically at a sleek red sports car that was taking up two spaces.

Rude. I couldn’t stand it when people did that.

“Tori!”

My assumption was validated when I watched my best friend bolt down the sidewalk a few feet and follow the bend that swept into the parking lot, take to the asphalt and sprint in her four-inch heels to where the sleek red sports car was parked. She stood beside it and looked it over for a whole two seconds before attacking the passenger side window with fists flying.

She must’ve thought it was really rude.

“Oh, my God!” Kali screamed.

“T! What are you doing?” Shay called out.

I took off running after her and heard the girls on my tail. Shay’s heels mainly, but I knew Kali was with her. We got inside the parking lot and over to the car, and I wasted no time in grabbing on to Tori’s shoulders and yanking her away from the window.

“Sweetie! What are you doing? Stop!” I yelled.

Tori fought me, twisting in my arms and then leaping for the window again.

“Tori!”

“Let me go, Syd!”

I yanked her back again and maneuvered around her, putting myself between her and the window and holding my hands up to keep her back.

Tori rubbed the edge of her right hand like it was stinging. “Move, hon.”

“No way.”

“Sydney.” Tori stepped closer. It was then I saw the tears in her eyes. “Move out of the way.”

I kept my hands up and I didn’t move.

“Not until you tell me what the hell you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

“It’s Wes.”

“What?” I asked, then it hit me.

“Oh, God,” Kali whispered.

“Shit,” Shay muttered.

I lowered my hands and looked over my shoulder at the car.

It was sleek. It was expensive. And it belonged to the man who broke my best friend’s heart.

“First, I’m busting out his windows. All of them,” Tori started, bringing my head around. “Then, I’m going to drag my heel across his door and carve Douche Bag into the paint.” She moved closer. Her hands were balled into fists. “Then, depending on my mood, I may set fire to it.”

“Hell yeah!” Shay cried. “Let’s do it!”

Kali stayed silent, but she was nodding her head approvingly. She knew Tori’s motives behind this and she felt they were justified.

Tori looked from Kali to me, tilting her head. “What do you say, Syd?”

I watched a tear drop onto my best friend’s cheek. I didn’t need to think about my decision regarding giving Wes some hurt.

I’d made it three weeks ago.

I spun around and started pounding my fists on the window and doing it with all my strength, screaming and hollering because this was crazy, and not to mention illegal, but fuck it, Wes deserved to walk out and find his car demolished so I was giving it my all.

Tori joined me a half a second later, then it was Shay’s turn.

I beat that window with everything I had. I was determined to break it, bullheaded determined, so the longer it stayed intact, the madder I became and the harder I beat on it.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

Tori was yelling at the top of her lungs, her arms flying with the punches she wasn’t landing either, but still flying all the same.

Shay was getting creative and ramming her shoulder into her window.

“Hey!”

I heard a man’s voice but I kept punching, smacking, and clawing at the glass.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

Someone tugged on my shoulder and pulled me away from the car. I looked back and saw it was Exhibit A from the restaurant a couple of weeks ago.

“You want to go to jail?” he asked me, dropping his hand.

I shook my head with wide eyes, then watched him stalk around the car and grab Shay. She giggled, not giving him much of a fight.

He deposited her next to me and moved behind us, falling in beside Kali.

He looked at her. She looked at him, smiled hesitantly, then shared, “I have a son.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets, then muttered an indifferent, “Cool.”

“Legs! What the hell, babe!”

Jamie had his arms wrapped around Tori and was dragging her away from the window, her legs flailing about and her body thrashing against his.

“Calm down!”

“Get off of me! Let me go!”

Tori’s feet were kicking in the air and she was twisting her head frantically.

“Quit trying to bite me and I will! Shit!”

He put her down and stepped back, getting between us and the vehicle to block us, a hand pushing through his hair, and his chest pulling in deep breaths.

“Now, what the fuck?” He stared at Tori. “What are you doin’? Are you tryin’ to get the cops called on you?”

“What I’m doing is none of your business,” she hissed. “So move out of my way.”

“Not a chance.”

Tori stuck her hands on her hips.

Jamie took this moment to really look at her, letting his eyes wander the length of her body and then doing it again, finally pulling back to her face to ask, “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“It’s eighties night,” she snapped, leaning closer. “And it’s girls’ night so if you don’t mind, go the fuck away.”

I jerked when I felt my phone vibrate from its keeping spot in my bra.

Oh, my. That felt nice.

I watched Jamie cross his arms in defiance.

“Not going anywhere ’til you tell me why you’re attacking this sweet ride. You better have a good reason, and by good, I mean it better be something on a government level and involving al-Qaeda, since this is a brand-new Corvette and costs a fuckin’ mint.”

“I know what kind of car it is, loser,” she replied. “And I know exactly how much it costs, considering I was there when he fucking paid for it.”

“So you know it costs a mint.”

“I know you better move out of my way.” Tori inched closer.

“Not happening, Legs. Not without your reason.”

My phone vibrated again.

This time I felt it all the way down to my knees and practically hummed.

“My reason doesn’t involve you, but you can rest assured knowing it’s the best reason, and that’s all you’re gonna get.”

Jamie tilted his head. “Not good enough.”

“Move,” Tori seethed.

Jamie bridged the gap and came right up on Tori, bent his head to get closer, and ordered, “Tell me and I’ll move. Why are you doing this?”

I watched Tori take in a breath. I watched the hands at her sides go from fists to slack and submissive.

“Hey!” another voice yelled from a distance. “You need me?”

Everyone, including me, turned around and saw where the voice was coming from.

A man was standing by the vintage Jeep I recognized from the other day. It was idle and clearly not in a parking spot, which I assumed was because of the guys spotting our act of vengeance and throwing the gear into Park to rush over and stop us.

I couldn’t make the man out too well, thanks to the distance and it being dark, but I could see him leaning against the passenger door and looking in our direction with his arms crossed over his chest.

He appeared tall and had really short hair if it wasn’t completely shaved. That’s all I could make out.

“We’re good,” Jamie yelled back. “Be ready in a minute.”

The guy heard him, clearly he did, but he kept watching from where he stood. He didn’t get back in the Jeep.

“Now,” Jamie started again, drawing my head around.

He was still standing just as close to Tori as he was a minute ago.

“You tell me why you’re trying to get yourself arrested and I’ll move, but not until you tell me, Legs. And you’re not getting past me so don’t even waste your energy.”

Tori shook her head.

“You need to just go and pretend you didn’t see me.”

“Yeah.” Jamie studied her for a minute, looking her over like he was admiring a piece of art, then continued, saying the tiniest bit quieter, “That’s not fuckin’ happening.”

My right boob vibrated and sent a shiver up my spine. I ignored it and watched Tori roll up on her toes to get into Jamie’s face.

He didn’t move back. I didn’t think he minded her getting that close to him.

“Fine,” she grated out. “You want to know? I’ll tell you. That sweet ride belongs to my ex who became my ex when I ran into him and his perfect little family at the mall a few weeks ago, including his drop-dead gorgeous wife and their super-cute daughter who couldn’t have been more than two, this perfect little family not being something I was aware of but became not only aware of but acquainted with when he decided it was best to introduce me to them as an old friend from high school.”

Jamie leaned back, blinking.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “You serious? He did that to you?”

“Do I look like I’m serious?” Tori asked rhetorically. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate you moving out of my way so I can finish destroying something precious of his since he went about destroying everything precious of mine.”

I moved then and stepped up beside Tori, taking her hand and wrapping it up in my own.

“So we can finish destroying it,” I corrected her, looking at Jamie.

Tori gave my hand a squeeze.

Jamie looked only at Tori, not even flinching when Shay stepped up and took Tori’s other hand.

“I’d like to say that even though I am not participating in the destruction of that vehicle, I am with her one hundred percent.”

“Thanks, babe,” Tori replied to Kali, keeping her eyes on the man standing in her way.

Jamie kept on looking at Tori, but he was doing it differently now than when he first yanked her away. His eyes were soft. Tender.

He understood.

Then he did something that shocked the hell out of me and everyone else standing there.

He spun around and moved beside the vehicle, pulled out a pocket knife, flicked the blade open, and jammed it straight into the back passenger tire.

I jumped and whispered, “Oh, my God.”

“Holy shit,” Tori breathed.

Shay started giggling and Kali gasped.

We all watched Jamie yank his knife out and heard the sweet hiss of air being released into the night.

He didn’t look at us. He repeated the gesture and popped the remaining three tires, doing it quickly, then slid his knife away and came to stand in front of Tori, bent to get his face close to hers again, and whispered, “Get out of here.”

Tori tightened her grip.

“Let’s go!” Shay yelled, tugging on Tori, who then tugged on me.

Then we ran, leaving Jamie and his knife skills, quiet Exhibit A, and the mystery man at the Jeep behind us.

And we all did it laughing.

*  *  *

My entire body was still trembling with energy when we finally got home after tracking down our Uber idiot.

Shay was dropped off first, then Kali. Tori announced she wanted to take a shower the minute we walked in the door to strip the gunk out of her hair, so she left me in the kitchen, where I went about making my mug of hot chocolate while reading the missed texts from Brian, which were all versions of him asking if I had called Uber yet or if I was still drinking. Seriously, his concern for my whereabouts couldn’t have been any cuter. Then carefully carrying that mug up the stairs while my ear was pressed to the phone, listening to it ring.

I couldn’t wait to tell Brian about my night.

“What’s up, babe?” he greeted me, all smooth and warm sounding.

I wanted to slide inside his voice and live there. He made my skin tingle.

“Trouble, oh, my God, you are not going to believe what happened tonight! I was Wild to, like, the thousandth degree!”

I kicked the door closed and carried my mug over to the bed, sat on the edge and toed off my heels, then scooted back and took a sip of my drink.

“Yeah? What did you do? Steal a car?”

“No. I beat the crap out of one!”

He was soundless while I chewed up a marshmallow.

Obviously shocked and wanting to hear more information, I obliged his silent request and elaborated, bulldozing through my recount of the evening and not stopping to pause for questions, only for a sip of my beverage when needed because my mouth was dry.

Brian quietly listened. I was sure he was silent because he was anxious for more, this was such a good story, so I continued on, not wanting to make him wait.

“Then, and oh my God, this is the craziest thing ever, Brian, these two guys showed up to stop us and pulled us away from the car. The one guy who is a total loser because he always hits on Tori and calls her Legs, he hears why Tori is attacking this car and pulls out a knife and slashes the tires! It was so badass! Then he tells us to scram so we did. I nearly fell into a bush ’cause of my heels but I didn’t care. It was the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me!”

More silence. A lot of it, which was odd now that I was done recounting the events and I was sure he’d have questions or comments.

I worried we got disconnected.

“Hello? Brian?” I called into the phone.

“What kind of car was it?” he finally asked, his voice a lot quieter than it normally was when we talked.

“Uh…oh, a red Corvette. Apparently it costs a mint.”

“A red Corvette,” he repeated.

“Mm-hm. Yep.”

“You were trying to bust out the windows of a red Corvette and two guys stopped you, one slashed the tires, and you were all in eighties gear.”

“Yes,” I stressed, confused as to why he was recounting the events for me when I lived them. “God, it was such a rush!”

“Unfuckingbelievable,” he mumbled.

“Right? I’ve never done anything like that before in my life.” I laughed. “We totally could’ve gotten arrested. Jamie definitely could’ve gotten arrested. I hope he wasn’t caught.”

I sat my mug on the nightstand and fell back on a pillow, legs reaching. I rubbed my heels against the comforter.

“Was I wild, Brian?” I asked when his silence was killing me.

“What?”

“Was I wild? If you’d seen me tonight, would you have thought I was wild?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

I attempted to twirl a lock of my hair but the hairspray prevented it. I pulled at the bottom of my tutu instead, twisting my fingers in the tulle.

“There was this other guy there and I saw him watching us, and I wondered if he saw me and thought I was wild going after that car like I did.”

Brian was quiet for moment, then answered, “I’m sure he did.”

I smiled at that.

“I missed you tonight,” I told him, feeling a little bold from the alcohol and the rush of adrenaline still scratching in my blood. “Thought about you the whole time I was with my girls.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. You think about me the whole time you were with your boys?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you did, but I don’t know if you thought about me the way I thought about you.”

“And how’s that?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or serious. His voice wasn’t giving anything away. There were no familiar tones to it. Nothing I’d normally take comfort in knowing that voice and loving that I knew it.

It was different but I didn’t care. I wasn’t being cautious. I didn’t feel the need to be.

This was Brian. I knew him.

I knew him.

“I thought about what your bottom lip might taste like,” I confessed, pulse racing and stomach clenched.

He inhaled in my ear. It was sharp like the cracking of a whip.

“Yeah?” he asked, but I heard him beg.

Yeah. Keep going.

“And I thought about what your skin would feel like under my hands and against my thighs. Um, you know…if you were between them.”

He didn’t say anything. He was breathing, just breathing, slow and heavy in my ear. It was simple, an essential action he had to do to stay alive. It had absolutely nothing to do with me or this conversation.

Still, it was the hottest noise I’d ever heard in my life.

I became bolder. Something was happening to me. Attacking Wes’s car was a rush, but this felt like someone had cut me open and filled me with a thousand heartbeats. My bones vibrated excitement. I was breathless. It was like I was being chased.

And I wanted to be caught.

“I thought about your fingers,” I continued. “What they would feel like. If they would pull and grip and if you would want to keep them in my hair or move. If you liked to kiss or if you liked to bite. The sounds you make when you’re close. God…Trouble, I thought about everything. Honestly, I’ve thought about it a lot.”

I dipped my hand between my legs, under hot pink tulle and over black satin. I wasn’t being cautious about this either.

I was burning up.

“Brian,” I moaned, moving with eyes closed so I could imagine I wasn’t the one moving. “Did you think about me that way?” I asked anxiously. “Do you?”

“Fuck,” he hissed. “Wild, what are you doing?”

“What do you want me to be doing?”

I hadn’t done this in months. I couldn’t remember the last time I was touched or I touched myself. My fingers felt foreign, but surefire. Aware. This was just like I remembered.

But it was so much better with the sounds and the voice in my ear.

A self-induced orgasm was a chocolate brownie.

A self-induced orgasm persuaded by Brian was a chocolate brownie covered in ice cream and sprinkles and whipped cream, heated so it was all gooey and sloppy.

I made a noise in my throat and spread my legs wider. The tulle scratched the back of my hand.

“Come on, Brian,” I coaxed through a quiet laugh. “You don’t want me to stop, do you?”

“Fuck no.” I heard the soft rustling of clothes. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“You.”

“Doing what?”

“Everything.”

“Touching you?”

I nodded and licked my lips. I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

He knew.

“Kissing you?”

“Yes,” I moaned.

“Where?”

“Right here.”

I dragged my finger over my clit and shuddered.

“Your pussy?” he asked. “Is that where I should kiss you, Wild? With your thighs against my ears so tight I can’t hear you scream?”

“God, yes.”

I wiggled against the onslaught of my fingers.

“Would you kiss me there?”

“I would,” he answered raggedly. “You’d have problems stopping me.”

“I…I wouldn’t stop you. I’d never stop you.”

“What about my dick?” he suggested, and just the mention of that word had me arching my back and panting. “Filling you. Fucking you. Have you thought about that?”

“Have you?” I asked, grinding my palm against my clit and pressing my fingers against the barrier of my tights, picturing just that.

His dick. Filling me. Fucking me.

“You wanna know what I’ve thought about?”

“Please,” I begged.

The pressure was building. The muscles in my legs and arms and belly tensing and twitching and tightening.

I wanted to explode.

Brian made a noise then, deep and tortured in my ear, and I knew, I knew he was getting off, too.

“I’ve wondered how sweet you’d really be on my tongue and how wild you’d get around my cock,” he said, low and smooth and wicked. “Your ass and the color of your cunt.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered.

“How tight you are and how wet you’d get just from my fingers. Your tits…touching them. Tasting them. If you liked to watch or if you’d keep your face buried in my neck while I fucked you.”

“Brian,” I groaned, fingers sliding faster. “K-keep going.”

“I’ve thought about fucking you for hours, Wild. Only stopping so I could eat you or to watch you suck me off, then fucking you again and again…and again. Every way. Everywhere I could take you, I would.” He panted in my ear. “You need to know, Syd…”

“What? Tell me. Please, I’m so close.”

“Fuck.”

He hesitated for a moment, allowing me to focus on all of his other sounds, and God, I wanted him to keep going and tell me, tell me everything, but I didn’t want to miss the noise his hand made moving over his cock or his eager breaths, growing more and more desperate by the second.

“I get so hard just from hearing your voice,” he admitted. “I think about you all the time. More than I should. If I ever got the whole thing…”

“Oh, God. Oh, shit…Oh, oh,” I gasped. “Brian…Brian.”

Blood rushed in my ears as I came hard and heavy limbed, toes curling and eyes rolling and so wet I could feel it against the tips of my fingers through my panties and tights.

It was exquisite.

I felt weightless and warm on the fall down, maybe a little drunker than I was at the start of this conversation, and my eyes shot open when I heard Brian moan my name and “Fuck, fuck, fuck” over the quiet slapping of skin.

He was coming.

I bit my lip.

God, I would’ve given my right arm to see that. I bet he looked beautiful, because he was.

I knew he was. In my blood, I knew it.

We were both silent for a moment, then I had to ask. I had to know.

“What would happen if you got the whole thing?”

He exhaled brokenly.

He wasn’t going to give me that last little piece. The moment had passed. I could feel it, could sense him pulling back and allowing uncertainty to creep in and settle, tainting what we had just shared.

I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. But he spoke before I could.

“I should go,” he suggested.

“Brian, wait. Don’t.” I sat up and tucked my knees close to my belly. “I wanted that to happen, okay? I’ve wanted it for a while now. Maybe since the beginning.”

“Syd…”

I didn’t let him finish. I had to get this out before I couldn’t get it out.

“I think about you all the time, too,” I rushed. “More than I probably should because we’ve never actually met, but that’s the only reason why I shouldn’t think about you this much. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve never laid eyes on you, but I don’t care because I like thinking about you and I love talking to you, and what we just did together.” I closed my eyes and softened my voice. “I really really liked that, too. It wasn’t a mistake, and…and I won’t let you think it was. I won’t.”

I stared at my knees and waited. I fought the urge to crawl under my bed and hide until winter.

“Your husband is a fucking moron,” he growled seconds later.

I sat up straighter and pressed my fingers to my lips. I felt them curl.

Oh…wow.

He just totally said that. Brian’s never said anything about Marcus before. He’s only listened to me bash him or retell our history, commenting to let me know he was with me and listening, but that was it. That’s all he’d ever given me.

Until now, when he just totally said that.

I was grinning so big I was afraid my lips were going to stretch out and never fall back looking right again.

Too bad I totally didn’t care if that happened or not.

This felt great!

“Gotta let you go, babe,” Brian said.

My grin turned into a pout, and I quietly pleaded, “Not yet.”

“Not gonna sit here and talk to you with jizz on my stomach.”

“Oh.”

I blushed and slid back down the bed, covering half of my face with my hand.

“Yeah, oh,” he repeated with a hint of humor. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

I was suddenly grinning again.

We would talk tomorrow, and maybe do more of that.

I couldn’t wait.

“Okay, Brian.”

“Later, Wild.”

“Later.”

I disconnected the call and fell asleep in full eighties gear without stripping the gunk out of my hair or anything. I didn’t care.

I’d have Brian again tomorrow.