Cold Feet In Hot Sand

by Lauren Gallagher

  With a handful of boxes, his suitcase from the trip, and a backpack piled in the trunk and across the backseat, Nick pulled out of the garage and headed over to Carlos’s place.

  Carlos opened the door, took one look at Nick, and said, “You want a beer?” He paused. “Scratch that. You need a beer. Go sit in the living room.”

  “Thanks.” Nick came in, leaving everything in the car except his laptop case, and went into the living room. Carlos joined him a moment later with a pair of cold beers.

  “So what happened?” Carlos asked, watching Nick down half his beer in one go. “You guys have a big fight or something?”

  “No, not really.” Nick pressed the cold bottle against his forehead. “It’s such a mess. I can’t even…”

  “You guys gonna try to patch things up?” Carlos asked. “Or is it done?”

  Nick laughed dryly. “Oh, it’s done. It’s very, very done.”

  “She didn’t take it so good, then.”

  “Not really.” Nick took a drink, then set the bottle on a coaster. “I mean, I should have told her way, way sooner, so I figured she’d be upset. But then things got a lot worse.”

  Carlos said nothing, but lifted his eyebrows slightly.

  Nick sighed. “Long story short, her sister came to try to talk some sense into me, and we ended up sleeping together.”

  “You—” Carlos’s eyes widened. “You nailed Deanna?”

  “Yes, and I feel like the biggest ass on the planet.” Nick scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “God, what was I thinking?”

  “Must have been some conversation,” Carlos mused. “I figured she’d rip your head off for dumping her sister.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Nick played with the label on his beer bottle. “That’s what she came to do, actually.”

  “Guess she had a change of heart.”

  “Just a bit.”

  “Well,” Carlos said, gesturing down the hall with his own beer bottle, “guest room’s set up. Stay as long as you need to.”

  “Thanks,” Nick said quietly. “Hopefully it won’t be too long.”

  He couldn’t imagine why he’d need to stay here very long. It couldn’t take much time to settle things with Kristina, find another place to live, and move out of the house. Especially not in between going back to work, where he’d have to face Deanna on a daily basis and try to stay close to sane.

  Fuck. This could take a while.

  Seven

  On Monday morning, Deanna paused outside the door to the office and took a deep breath. She was so not ready for this. Not for anything that required concentration, and definitely not for any questions or conversations relating to Nick.

  Too bad, sister. It’s show time.

  Then she pushed open the door and walked in, steeling herself for the inevitable barrage of questions and pleas to see photos. Nick was the office crush for probably half the women in the building, and more than a few had consoled themselves over his impending marriage by making Deanna promise to bring in photos of him in his tux.

  In spite of herself, Deanna couldn’t help shivering. Nick would have looked amazing in the white tux he’d never worn. She knew it, they knew it, and it was only a matter of time before they asked her to pony up the pics.

  She didn’t make it halfway to her office.

  “So,” Marci asked with a huge grin. “Do you have pictures?”

  “Please tell me you have one of Nick in his tux,” Renee said.

  “Oh yes,” Beth said. “I must see that man in a tux.”

  “Uh, well…” Deanna dropped her gaze, watching herself thumb the strap on her purse. “The wedding was actually called off.”

  “What?” Beth squeaked. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  “What happened?” she asked. “Someone get cold feet?”

  “Well.” Deanna paused, thinking quickly. “It’s kind of a personal matter between Nick and Kristina.”

  “Can you at least tell us which one called it off?” Renee asked.

  “Oh, please.” Beth waved a hand. “You know he did. No woman’s going to go all that way for a wedding like that, only to call it off at the last second. Not unless he royally fucked up.”

  “Good point.” Marci shook her head. “God, what a jerk.”

  “Is that true?” Renee asked. “Was he the one to call it off?”

  Deanna shifted her weight. “Honestly, neither of them told me. They were both pretty upset, and…” She shrugged apologetically.

  Marci and Beth looked at each other, smirking, and in unison they said, “Nick called it off.”

  While the three of them started speculating on Nick the jerk’s reasoning, Deanna bowed out and hurried down the hall to her office. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, clutching her purse to her chest just to give herself something to hold on to. This was going to be one long day. And the worst part? The rumor mill, which was likely churning at full speed by this point, would start going again once Nick came back. Today they’d all find out what happened. When he came back to work, everyone would be digging to find out why.

  “High school never ends,” Deanna muttered, and pushed herself off the door.

  Word spread fast. Offices like this were to gossip what dry grass was to wildfires, and Deanna was pretty sure the rumor had traveled to every desk on every floor before the nine o’clock staff meeting convened. Three people stopped her on her way to the conference room. When she finally made it, with moments to spare before the meeting started, Connie from accounting stood in the back with her since every chair was taken.

  “Is it true about Nick?” Connie whispered. “I heard from Mary in purchasing that he left your sister at the altar.”

  Deanna thumbed the edge of one of the file folders in her hand. “Well, it’s not quite that simple, but no, they didn’t get married.”

  “Wow, he didn’t seem like the type to do something like that.” Connie clicked her tongue and shook her head. “How is your poor sister holding up?”

  She’d be doing a lot better if Nick and I hadn’t slept together.

  Deanna cleared her throat. “She’ll be all right. It’s been—”

  “All right, folks,” Frank the floor manager said. “Let’s get started.”

  Deanna had never been so happy to have a staff meeting get moving. When it was over, she made a stealthy exit—something she’d long ago refined as an art form to escape her boss—and returned to her office to get back to work.

  As she always did, she checked her e-mail as soon as she returned to her desk. Seven messages? That was it? She usually had a few more than that after a meeting. Responses and auto-replies from e-mails she’d sent, urgent messages from everyone who couldn’t get a printer working or a piece of software to cooperate. Then there’d also be a few from—

  Oh. That was it.

  No “good morning, I’m going to break someone’s neck, how are you?” e-mail from Nick. No forwarded jokes, cute pictures, or “hey, girl, what’s up?” e-mails from Kristina. Complete silence from both of them, and not because they were off enjoying their honeymoon.

  Deanna let her face fall into her hand and groaned. One fuck-up in the heat of the moment, and the consequences just kept on piling up.

  You brought it on yourself, girlfriend. Deal with it.

  She took a deep breath, clicked away from her conspicuously sparse inbox, and tried to focus on the parts of her job that weren’t affected.

  She couldn’t shake her constant awareness of the absence of Nick’s name on her list of new messages, though. The day didn’t seem right without their constant e-mail banter. It was always kind of a bummer when Nick was out of the office for any reason. Though he and Deanna didn’t work together directly, they saw each other in the halls, stopped into each other’s offices to shoot the breeze, sometimes had lunch together, and usually shot bantering e-mails back and forth throughout the day. He was her office buddy, and the days always dragged by when he wa
s out sick or on vacation.

  And now there was a good chance that was gone. Oh, he’d

  still be here. They’d still pass in the halls, and they’d still interact on occasion when their jobs demanded it. But what they’d had up until this point? The us-against-the-office friendship that kept them sane between eight and five? They’d fucked that away. Literally.

  But Nick wasn’t the only one she usually e-mailed with throughout the day. At this point, she didn’t even know if Kristina was back in town, or if she’d stayed for a few days to decompress in the place she should have had her honeymoon. She had no idea where Kristina was, how she was feeling what she was doing. This was probably the longest they’d gone without speaking in years.

  The lack of contact with Nick and the complete radio silence with Kristina was surreal and unsettling. It was wrong, damn it.

  A knock at her door startled her.

  “It’s open,” she called out, and she was more than a little relieved when Jennifer, her only other close friend here besides Nick, stepped into the office.

  “Hey,” she said. “How are you doing?”

  Deanna shrugged. “I’m all right.”

  Jennifer closed the door and took a seat opposite Deanna. “So what happened? I’ve heard through every grapevine in the building that Nick bailed on marrying your sister.”

  “They split up.” Another shrug. “Isn’t much else to tell.”

  “But how do you feel about all of it?”

  Deanna fidgeted in her chair, struggling to keep eye contact. “I’m not thrilled, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Upset?”

  “Of course I’m upset,” Deanna said. “My friend and my sister just called off their wedding at the last second. What’s not to be upset about?”

  Jennifer’s eyebrow quirked in that way they always did when she saw right through someone. “Yeah, but, I don’t know. Every time I’ve seen you around the office today, you seem out of it. Like it’s bothering you.”

  “Shouldn’t it be?”

  “Yeah, but it seems like it’s bothering you… differently.”

  “Differently, how?”

  “You tell me.”

  Deanna kept her gaze focused on her desk. She could usually

  talk to Jennifer about anything and everything, but not this. Not when it involved someone else in the office.

  What could she say, anyway? “Well, Nick called off the wedding, but then I helped him seal the deal by sleeping with him on what was supposed to be his wedding night, so now no one is talking to anyone and it’s all a monstrously huge mess.”

  “Jesus, Dee,” Jennifer said. “What in the world happened?”

  Deanna swallowed. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time.” Jennifer leaned a little closer. “Talk to me, Dee.”

  Chewing the inside of her cheek, Deanna struggled to hold eye contact with Jennifer. Though she didn’t like the idea of talking to a co-worker about a tryst with another, she desperately needed to get this off her chest. And maybe gain an ally, since if there was anyone left on the planet who might not be judgmental, it was Jennifer.

  “Do you swear on your life nothing leaves this office?” Deanna asked.

  “Yeah, of course.” Jennifer leaned forward and rested her elbows on Deanna’s desk. “What’s going on?”

  Deanna took a deep breath. “Nick broke up with my sister. I went to talk to him, and we talked, but then…” Shame twisted beneath her ribcage, and her mouth went dry.

  Jennifer’s eyes widened. “You… and Nick…”

  Sighing, Deanna nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Jennifer sat back with a huff of breath. “About time you two figured it out.”

  “Wait, what?” Deanna stared at her.

  Jennifer laughed. “Oh come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted him before.”

  “I…um…” Deanna shook her head slowly. “I mean, I always thought he was good-looking, but…”

  “You never once, even while you were married to that cheating cretin, looked at Nick and thought you’d like to have a slice of that?”

  Deanna laughed softly. “Well, okay, but I’ve looked at a lot of guys. And who in this office hasn’t looked at Nick like that?”

  “And how many of us would pass up the opportunity if we

  got him naked and willing?” Jennifer smirked and held up her hand with her thumb and forefinger forming a zero. “None, sweetie. Especially not you.”

  “In theory, maybe,” Deanna said. “But, I honestly never—”

  “Dee.” Jennifer grinned. Dropping her voice to almost a whisper, she said, “You’re not fooling me.”

  “I’m serious, though. He’s always been a good friend, and he thinks the same of me.” Deanna paused. “I mean, I think he has.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Jennifer shook her head. “To be honest, half the staff thinks Nick was just with your sister because she’s the closest he’ll ever get to you.”

  Deanna’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I’m not sure if you two are just so close you can’t see what the rest of us see, but the connection between you two? It’s almost painfully obvious to anyone looking in from the outside.”

  “It… really?”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “But… he and I, we’ve always just been good friends.”

  “Really good friends,” Jennifer said. “Which is why I’m not at all surprised something happened between you two after he called off the wedding. Isn’t that the first time you’ve both been single at the same time?”

  Deanna dropped her gaze. It was, wasn’t it? But she’d been single around single men without jumping their bones. She had male friends. Why was Nick any different?

  Well, Deanna. Why is he any different?

  She waved a hand and shook her head. “Listen, he was upset, I was upset and lonely, we’d both had a little to drink, and we got carried away. That’s all there is to it.” Liar.

  “I’m sure,” Jennifer said with a knowing look in her eyes. “Deanna, don’t misunderstand me here, okay? I’m not calling you an opportunist or saying you were taking advantage of the fact that he was suddenly single. I know you better than that. What I do think is that you and Nick have had this super close friendship, and this chemistry that’s visible from space to everyone but the two of you.” She shrugged with one shoulder. “Honestly, I’ve been wondering for a while how you’d feel once he was married, so I just think whatever it was that happened, however you two ended up together, was

  probably bound to happen sooner or later.”

  Deanna chewed her lip and lowered her gaze again. Hadn’t she thought the same thing while they’d fumbled their way through their little encounter? That, right or wrong, it had been a long time coming?

  “Doesn’t make it right, though,” she whispered.

  “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t,” Jennifer said. “And I don’t think he would have cheated on her or you would have done him after he’d married Kristina. But I have known you both for a long time, and quite honestly, I’m not surprised you guys wound up together as soon as you were both single for five minutes.”

  “Still…”

  “Well, good luck sorting it all out.” Jennifer shot her a sympathetic grimace. Then she glanced at her watch and started to get up. “Damn it, I should get back to work before the boss comes looking for me. Just, you know, think about what I said.”

  “I will,” Deanna said. “Thanks.”

  Jennifer offered a sympathetic smile, then left the office.

  As soon as she was alone, Deanna rubbed her eyes. So the whole damned staff thought she and Nick had some sort of latent chemistry? That what happened on the beach had been inevitable all this time?

  Shaking her head, she blew out a breath. Maybe there was a spark of something between them, but that ship sailed the day Deanna introduced him to her sister. The ship fucking sank the night they slept together. Whate
ver might have existed between them couldn’t exist now, not if Deanna had any hope of salvaging her relationship with her sister. Or, for that matter, concentrating at work.

  Speaking of which…

  Come on, Deanna. Focus.