by Ali Parker
I sighed wearily. “I am.”
“You know what will fix that right up?”
“I had my heart set on a hot bath, wine, and a good book.”
My driver nodded her agreement. “That sounds lovely too. But a better cure is a good ear to listen to you. You can talk to me if you like. Or call a friend. Invite someone over. Don’t get stuck playing a narrative in your head that you have no control over.”
“You should offer counseling services, along with transportation. People would pay good money for such things.”
“You’re not the first one to tell me that.”
I decided her advice was pretty sound. It wouldn’t do me any good to spend the rest of my night holed up in my house, checking my phone for a message from Rick every five minutes.
No, I could do better than that.
So I called Jackson and asked him what he was up to. He told me he was heading out to meet Hailey for drinks and they were going to see where the night took them. “Why? What’s up?”
“I could use some company tonight,” I said. “But you enjoy your evening with Hailey. I’ll call Vanessa or—”
“Nonsense. Come join us. Hailey hasn’t seen you since the reunion and you know I love your company. It’ll be fun.”
“Where are you going for drinks?”
“The brewery on Canal Street. I can’t remember what it’s called. Has the big patio and the yellow umbrellas.”
“I know the one,” I said. “I’ll see you in half an hour.”
My cab driver, who I learned on the half-hour drive to the brewery from Rick’s house was named Margaret, pulled over to the curb in front of the patio with yellow umbrellas. She turned around in her seat and gave me a big grin.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure, doll. Have a good night with your friends. And don’t get your panties in a bunch waiting for this hunk to call you. He will. I most certainly would,” she added with a wink.
I laughed and fished some cash out of my wallet. “Thank you for listening. I feel better.”
“It was the least I could do, sweetheart.”
I got out of the cab and looked down at my outfit as Margaret drove away. I felt more underdressed than usual. On a normal night out, I certainly wouldn’t show up in leggings, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. But I was in movie-night attire, not going-out attire, and I considered myself lucky that we were going to a casual brewery instead of a bar.
I went inside and was the first to arrive, so I ordered myself an in-house-brewed ale and a snack-sized charcuterie plate. Then I found a nice seat by a window near the patio, which was presently closed since it was raining. There were a handful of people out there smoking, huddled under the umbrellas that looked pretty gloomy in the dark wet night.
Jackson and Hailey arrived about five minutes after me.
Hailey came through the door first and shook rain off her coat. Jackson followed her in and said something that made her laugh. They made their way to the counter, ordered some drinks, and spied me waving at them through the crowd.
I got to my feet and gave Hailey a hug when she joined me at the table while Jackson waited to collect their drinks.
“It’s so good to see you.” Hailey beamed. “It’s been so long.”
A country-rock song poured through the speakers as we gave each other a hug and then settled into our seats across from each other. Hailey crossed one leg over the other, tucked a strand of wavy light brown hair behind her ear, and clasped her hands together over her knee. “Jackson told me all about this crazy wedding you were planning that sort of blew up. How’ve you been doing with the fallout of that?”
“Actually,” I said, nudging my drink an inch across the table. “That’s why I called him. I needed someone to vent to. My cab driver lent an ear on the way over but it’s not the same.”
“Cab driver?”
“She was a very good listener.”
“Fair enough. Well, whatever it is, you can lay it on us, girl. It sounded like a downright mess.”
“It was.”
Jackson met us at the table before the country song ended and bled into something with a bit more of an indie feel. I tapped my foot to the rhythm as Jackson sipped foam off the top of his dark beer and Hailey indulged in a sip of cider.
“How’ve you been, Kim?” Jackson asked. “Any more wild dates to tell me about that aren’t my fault?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “No.”
“Kim was just telling me about this wedding that fell through,” Hailey said.
Jackson lit up like a Christmas tree and gave me a devious grin. “Yeah. A shame, that whole thing. But I guess it depends where you’re standing.”
Hailey frowned. Her pretty lips turned down and she shot him a dark look. “Jackson, that’s not very nice. It’s always sad when a wedding falls apart, no matter where you’re standing.”
Jackson laughed and leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs off the floor. “So Kim didn’t tell you she’s head over heels for the groom?”
Hailey’s eyes widened a little. “No. She didn’t.”
“Head over heels is an exaggeration,” I said.
Jackson’s eyebrow quirked upward. “Is it?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “Rick and I have chemistry. But head over heels implies there’s a lot more going on than just sexual attraction.”
“Which has been building for a year,” Jackson noted.
Hailey whistled. “Damn. Really?”
I scowled playfully at her. “You’re supposed to be on my side. Girl power. Come on.”
She giggled and had more cider. “Sorry. Carry on. You’re not in love with this guy. You just want to fuck him? Am I right?”
My cheeks burned. I pulled a big gulp of ale from the edge of my glass.
Jackson dropped the front legs of his chair back down on the floor. “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Hold up. I know that look.” He pointed animatedly at me. “You already did it, didn’t you?”
I looked everywhere but at the pair of them. The ceiling. The bar. The street. The glob of pink bubble gum flattened to the sidewalk outside. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Kim. I know you better than I know the back of my hand. You and your fantasy guy hooked up, didn’t you?”
I licked my lips. “Maybe.”
Jackson flattened both hands on the table and leaned toward me. “Tell us everything.”
I tried to play coy for the next five minutes but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the nitty-gritty from the pair of them. So I told them the whole of it, starting with the moment on the bridge at the aquarium and then passing through all the shit that followed, making sure to highlight Verity’s real heartwarming moments.
“She sounds like a real piece of work,” Hailey muttered as she finished her drink.
I nodded. “You have no idea.”
“Well, it sounds to me like Rick is going to kick her ass to the curb,” Jackson said. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a hunch that this Rick guy might be a good fit for you.”
“If only it was that easy.” I sighed.
Jackson shrugged. “It can be.”
“No,” I said. “It’s too messy. There is a lot we both need to sort out. And he has a daughter. We have to be smart about it. Not reckless. And that’s pretty much the all-encompassing word I’d use to describe what we’ve been doing so far. The timing might just be too bad for us to make this work.”
“Screw timing,” Jackson said.
“Agreed,” Hailey chimed in.
I eyed them across the table. They were oblivious to their own advice. Jackson had been in love with Hailey since the tenth grade. I knew it. Vanessa knew it. Everybody knew it except for Hailey and Jackson, it seemed.
“So I should just see where this goes?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jackson said. “Don’t play games. Tell this guy what you want. Tell him you know the timing is shitty. But it’s not enough to stop yo
u from caring about him.”
“Honesty is the best policy,” Hailey said.
I chewed the inside of my cheek and considered what they were saying. Could I come on that strong with Rick, or was I going to scare him off?
Was he worth the risk?
Or should I hang back and see where things went?
Jackson got to his feet. “You ladies need more drinks. Sit tight. I’ll be back with another round.”
Chapter 27
Rick
Every single person who went into Kim’s apartment building shot me a dirty look as I sat on the front steps of her building and waited for her to come home. I’d buzzed her unit when I first arrived and received no answer, so I assumed she hadn’t made it home after leaving my place earlier that night.
It was now almost midnight and she was still nowhere to be seen. I’d texted and called but hadn’t heard anything from her. I didn’t want to be the crazy guy she was hooking up with who was trying to keep tabs on her.
All I needed was five minutes of her time to apologize.
Kim hadn’t deserved all the shit Verity rained down on her earlier tonight. She’d handled herself well and turned the tables on Verity, sure, but it never should have happened in the first place. Which was the same thing I’d told Chessie when I finally kicked Verity out and had a chance to sit down one on one with my daughter, who couldn’t make sense of why my ex-fiancée was so furious.
Not to mention erratic.
Chessie believed me when I told her we didn’t need to worry about Verity anymore. She was out of the picture for good.
My fingers were crossed that Kim would believe me too.
She had to.
Otherwise, I might lose her.
I gave my head a shake. Don’t think like that. Things have only just started between you two.
A car pulled up to the curb across the lawn. I peered at it as someone got out of the back seat and swayed on the spot before managing to get the door closed. They turned and began wobbling up the grass, clearly intoxicated.
Once they made it halfway to the doors, I realized it was Kim, so I got to my feet.
Her head was down as she rummaged in her purse for her keys, so she didn’t see me standing there until she reached the concrete and looked up. She froze in place, blinked in confusion, and cocked her head to the side.
“Rick?”
I moved down the three steps to meet her. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I called Jennifer to watch Chessie. I needed to come and see you. To explain. And apologize.”
Her brow furrowed. “For what?”
“For what?” I asked. How could she not know? “For Verity. For what she said to you and the position I put you in.”
Kim let out a drunken little giggle and I realized she’d had more drinks than I thought. Had she been drinking because of what happened today? Was she that put off about it?
Fuck.
She waved me away and stumbled up the stairs. I moved up them beside her with one hand out to steady her in case she fell. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Rick. Honestly.” Kim struggled with her keys and turned them around in a continuous loop on her keyring. Finally, she selected the largest key and slid it in the door. It unlocked with a soft click and I pushed the door open for her.
She stepped inside, smiling at me. “It’s nice that you stopped by though.”
Was she telling me to leave?
It didn’t feel right leaving her like this. I wanted to get her up to her apartment and have her drink some water and eat something. It wasn’t my place to be overprotective like that but I didn’t want her to hurt in the morning.
Although that seemed unavoidable as I watched her stumble to the elevator and jab the call button—or rather jab the wall beside the call button.
I sighed and joined her so I could call the elevator for her. The button lit up orange after I hit it.
Kim hiccupped. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The doors opened and we stepped inside. Kim watched me select the eighth floor. I didn’t get off the elevator. I stayed on, and when the doors closed, she eyed me suspiciously.
“Are you trying to get in my pants again, Rick?” she asked.
“What? No.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, slurring. Then she moved toward me and put her hands on my chest. She smelled like beer and strawberries. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “Kim, I just want to see you to your apartment safely. And maybe make you some toast.”
“Mmm, toast.”
“Yeah. Toast. Good idea, right?”
“You know all the right things to say,” she said before resting her cheek on my chest and wrapping her arms around my waist.
I let her hold on to me like that until we reached the eighth floor. Then I pried her off, held her hand, and walked her to her door, where she fumbled and struggled with her keys yet again until she found the right one. I didn’t say a word. She finally succeeded and opened it up, and she held it open for me. I stepped in after her, closed and locked the door behind us, and watched her drag her feet as she crossed the kitchen. She opened a cupboard, grabbed a glass, filled it up with water, and drank the entire thing.
More than a little bit ran down her chin and neck and stained the front of her sweatshirt.
“Did you have a good night?” I asked.
I wasn’t jealous. I swore I wasn’t. All I was doing was rooting around to find out what kind of drunk this was. Did she get shitfaced because she was angry with me? Because her feelings were hurt? Did it have anything to do with what Verity had said to her? Was her skin not as thick as she made it out to be?
Kim put her back to the counter and leaned up against it. “I did. I met up with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while at a brewery. It was nice. We talked about you.”
I blinked. “You did?”
“Yep.” She nodded, hiccupped, and wiped her wet lips with the back of her hand. “We talked about how messed up it was that Verity left you at the altar.”
Ouch.
“And how even more messed up it is that I’ve had a crush on you for over a year and managed to keep it under lock and key until the very moment you were single.” She shook her head at herself and rolled her eyes. “God, I’m so pathetic. I couldn’t even hold out a couple of weeks before kissing you.”
I tried to process everything she’d just said. “Hold on. You had a crush on me all year?”
She smiled. “Yep. Sure did. Ever since we first started planning your wedding.” Her eyes glazed over as she recalled a memory. “Ever since you walked into that coffee shop in your gray suit jacket and aviators. I remember it like it was yesterday. I didn’t even see Verity until you guys sat down. She just faded into the background because I was so absorbed in you.”
For the first time in a long time, I blushed.
Kim pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “You were wearing a white button-up shirt underneath. And jeans. Your ass looked great. You hooked your sunglasses in the front of your shirt when you sat down and they pulled the button open a little. It was so hard not to stare.” She shook her head and came back to herself. “I’m rambling.”
I spied a loaf of bread on her counter and unwrapped it to put two pieces down in her toaster. She watched me soundlessly and I looked at her over my shoulder. “I noticed you too, you know?”
She sidled up beside me and put her hands on my sides. “You did? What did you notice?”
“Your eyes. The intensity behind them when you looked at me. I remember what you were wearing, too.”
“You do?”
I nodded. Of course, I did. Kim had nearly stolen my breath away. “You were wearing a tight white skirt, yellow heels, and a blouse with flowers on it. It was low cut but done up with a silk ribbon that hung between your breasts and disappeared out of sight. Your hair was up.”
“Wow,” she
breathed, running her hands over my stomach and down to the waistband of my jeans.
I caught her wrists and stepped out of her hug. “I’m sorry, Kim. I had no idea you felt that way. It must have been hard to work so tirelessly on my wedding when you were feeling—you know—what you were feeling.”
“It was,” she admitted. “But it’s harder now. More intense.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
I shouldn’t have been asking her these questions right then. She was drunk and vulnerable. If there were things she didn’t want me to know, she didn’t have the presence of mind to keep them to herself. But I needed to know them. Desperately.
Her toast popped and I began putting butter on it for her.
“Well,” she said slowly, “now that we’ve been intimate, the feelings I had before are harder to ignore. My feelings for you have tripled and I don’t know what to do with myself. You’re on my mind all the time. So much so that it hurts sometimes. Or all the time. Do you know how many times I looked at my phone waiting for you to call me before it died?”
Ah. That explains why she never got my call or my message.
“It’s embarrassing,” she said.
“No, it’s not.” I pushed the plate of toast into her hands. “I did call you. And when I didn’t get a hold of you, I came here because I needed to see you. Eat.”
Kim ate. She was slow and nibbled on the bread like a squirrel, but she ate nonetheless.
“Come to bed with me,” she said after she finished.
I shook my head. “Not tonight. You need your rest. Once you sleep it off, we can talk some more.”
She pouted. “I want you inside me, baby.”
Please don’t torture me like this, woman.
“No,” I said again, more firmly this time. “You’ve had too much to drink. You get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
She reached for me and gathered the front of my shirt in her hands. “Please, baby. Come on.” She bit her bottom lip and pulled my shirt out of my pants. “Don’t you want to feel me? Don’t you want to come?”
Yes.
I gave her a kiss. She leaned into it and let me walk her backward to the bedroom. “I want that more than you could imagine. But not tonight. Tonight, I’ll only be fucking you in my dreams.”