by Jill Shalvis
“True,” Harley told Serena. “You did.”
Serena rolled her eyes. “Fine. Are you sleeping with him?”
Katie paused. “Isn’t it over between you two? Which technically makes it none of your business.”
Harley grinned at her. “You are way tougher than you look. I like that.”
Serena lifted a shoulder. “So you know the story of Cam and I.”
“Like you said, small town.”
“And you catch on quick.” Serena pointed to Katie’s still-full glass. “You drinking with us tonight or not?”
Katie tossed back the shot. Serena was right, it didn’t burn nearly as bad this time.
Serena poured again and turned up the radio. Harley began singing along with it at the top of her lungs, until Serena lifted a brow. “Who sings this song?”
“Alicia Keys.”
“Yeah? Well, let her sing it.”
Harley laughed and kept right on singing. In fact, she stood up to add an ass-shaking boogie to go with it.
“Don’t quit your day job, Harl.”
Katie wanted to sing too. And her toes were tapping, though she managed to stay seated. Then she remembered that she no longer held back, that she lived every single second, so she got up and joined Harley. But even though she knew the words, she couldn’t quite get in sync, with either the song or her own vision. “Wow.” She straightened her glasses, but that didn’t help.
“It’s the vodka,” Harley told her helpfully.
Serena raised her glass again. “To letting go. Dammit.”
Katie stopped dancing to grab her glass. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you wanted.”
“Not your fault.” Harley nudged Serena meaningfully. “Is it?”
Serena sighed, then tossed back her third shot. “She’s right. It’s my fault. And as long as we’re sharing, you should know. I loved the idea of Cam much more than I loved the reality of him. So don’t worry, I’m done being a bitch.” She lifted a shoulder. “Mostly.”
“There you are.” Harley hugged Serena. “Good girl. You did your best with him before it was over. You told him what you were feeling. You couldn’t have done more.”
“Let’s be honest. I could have done more.”
“Okay, well, except maybe you could have dumped him before you slept with someone else.”
Serena winced. “Yeah. That.” She covered her eyes. “I know, dammit. But when you’re right, you’re right. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Katie drank her last shot. Didn’t burn at all, and actually, it went down like smooth silk. However, she was having some trouble balancing on her barstool and grabbed on to the counter for balance. “I told Cam some of my feelings, but not what I should have told him.”
“Yeah?” Serena looked at her speculatively. “Like what?”
“I should have told him that—” She hiccupped, then covered her mouth. “’Xuse me. That he’s hiding behind all those muscles and cool eyes. That he’s really just a scared little boy, scared of one woman.” She sighed. “So dumb.”
“You could tell him now.” Katie’s cell phone was sitting on the counter next to her empty shot glass. Serena put a finger on it and pushed it toward her.
A small voice inside Katie said drunk dialing was never a good idea, but there was a louder voice saying, Do it. Have your say. And the next thing she knew, she was punching in Cam’s number.
He answered with that low, raspy, sexy voice, and she tried to find her tongue.
“Hello?” he repeated.
Oh God. She’d lost it. She’d lost her tongue.
“Katie?”
She blinked. “How did you know?”
“Caller ID.”
Right.
“Tell him,” Serena whispered.
Katie held up a finger to Serena. She was getting up to the telling part. “Cam.”
“Still me.”
Was he amused? Dammit, she had a way of cracking him up at her own expense. “I want you to know, chickens aren’t sexy. Not to me.”
This was met with silence.
“Are you there?” She was slurring her words now, which was embarrassing, so she took a deep breath. “Cam? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, chickens aren’t sexy. Uh…I don’t think they’re meant to be.”
“I was referring to you. You’re the chicken. And…” And she was losing her train of thought.
“He’s just a little boy,” Harley reminded her helpfully. “Scared of one woman.”
“Yes. That!” She pointed at Harley and smiled. “Thank you. You, Cam Wilder,” she said into her cell phone, “are acting like a little boy. I’m only one woman; you can’t possibly be scared of one woman, and…and…” Dammit. “And I want someone who isn’t going to let me walk away. I want someone who sees my faults, all of them, and there are many. Many, many…” Wait. Not a good idea to point that out. “Scratch that. Okay? Forget my faults, this is about you and your faults.”
“Katie—”
“I see them, Cam. I see all of them, and you know what? I want you anyway. I want you because of them. Because you’re human. Because…Because you represent someone who’s lived his life balls out—” She broke off at Harley’s choked laugh. “Oh. Am I not supposed to say balls to someone who has balls?”
“Where are you?” he asked her tightly.
She hiccupped. “Eating cookies.”
“And drinking,” he guessed.
“A little. And pretending that you weren’t relieved when I walked away from you this afternoon.”
“Katie.”
She could hear the regret in his voice now, and also the utter assurance that he’d done the right thing in letting her walk away. Which was stupid because though she’d done the physical walking, he’d been the one to go. Frustrated at her own jumbled thoughts and at Cam himself, she shook her head. “That’s all I can string together, but you get the gist.”
“Yeah, I get the gist. Katie—”
“Good-bye, Cam.” When she shut her phone, there was a moment of silence.
“That was impressive,” Harley finally said.
Katie dropped her forehead to the counter. “I wasn’t that impressive.”
“I think you were perfect,” Serena told her. “And brave. I like that you tell it how it is. I’m not charging you for the cookies. In fact, maybe we could work out a trade. I keep you in desserts, and you…you can help me out with my books. They’re a mess.”
“I’m leaving in a week.”
“Where to?”
“I’m going to go back to LA first, visit my parents, pay my rent, and then drive wherever the car takes me.”
“Bummer for both of us then.”
Katie sighed and lifted her head, looking at her new friends, both as drunk as she. Well, maybe not quite as drunk as she. “I should have wished for two nights of great sex on that falling star.”
“Huh?” Serena asked.
“I wished and it came true. I think I need another falling star.”
Serena and Harley craned their necks and looked outside, where the brief storm had moved on. Night had fallen in its place, complete with a sky full of stars.
“I want to wish for great sex,” Harley said to Serena.
“Me too,” Serena said, and the three of them grabbed their coats and staggered outside, unsteady on their feet.
“It’s cold.” Harley announced the obvious as they sat down on the curb in front of Katie’s car. Shivering, they leaned back and waited for a falling star, their breath crystallizing in front of their faces.
“The vodka is warming me up,” Katie said.
“Lightweight,” Serena said.
That was true enough, so she didn’t respond.
They all watched and waited, and when it happened, when a star twinkled bright and fell, all three of them gasped in unison at the beauty of it, and fell backward so that they were flat on the sidewalk.
“Wow,” Serena whispered, staring upward.
“Oh, wow, that’s amazing.”
“Shh.” Katie couldn’t take her eyes off the sky, where the last of the bursting light was fading. “Quick, wish. Wish hard and mean it.”
Serena scrunched up her eyes and wished.
Harley followed suit.
And Katie made another wish: That when she was done with her adventures, she could find a place like this, a place where she belonged, with people in it to care about her. And maybe with a Cam of her own to keep…
They were still lying like that, flat on the sidewalk, faces upturned to the sky, when a truck drove up. Katie heard the door open, heard the crunch of footsteps stop at their feet.
“What the hell?”
Wow, he’d driven quick. But then again, he wasn’t a weenie on the roads like she was.
“Why are you lying in the snow?” His voice was low and even, with a hint of incredulous disbelief, the voice of a man with the strapping physique and physical prowess that pretty much flatlined Katie’s heart whenever she listened to him, not to mention all that quiet, sexy charm that went with. Embarrassed, she jerked upright at the same time that Harley and Serena did the same, and—And bonked their heads together.
“Ow.”
“Ow.”
“Ow.”
“Great, it’s the three stooges,” Cam said over their comin-gling groans. “Or I should say the three drunk stooges.”
Chapter 20
Holding her head, seeing stars, Katie fell back to the sidewalk again.
Cam’s face appeared in her view as he leaned over her.
It was a gorgeous face, really, with those mesmerizing green eyes, and that scar above the left one. And then there was his crooked smile that had snagged her heart, but he wasn’t smiling now. Nope, he was frowning, but she still wanted to kiss that mouth.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Making friends. Friends who won’t walk away when I’m still talking.”
“I didn’t walk away. You did.”
“Semantics.” Or that’s what she tried to say, but her tongue tripped all over itself.
Serena laughed and staggered to her feet, smacking Cam in the chest. “You’re driving her plowed butt home, right?”
“I’m driving all of your plowed butts home.” He held out his fingers. “Keys.”
“Harley and I are good.” Serena pulled on Harley’s sleeve, helping her upright, where they leaned on each other. “We’re going to hang out here and consume massive quantities of the best dessert in town.”
“Psst,” Harley said in a stage whisper. “You’re the only dessert in town.”
Serena shushed her and looked at Katie. “You could join us. Your choice.”
“I could?”
“She could?” Cam said, just as surprised.
“Yes, but vaginas only. No dicks.” Serena grinned and pointed at Cam. “And you, Cam Wilder, are a d—”
“Whoops,” Harley said, covering Serena’s mouth, pulling her toward the door. “I think that’s enough vodka-induced insults.”
Katie stared after them, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the vodka and everything to do with…belonging.
“Are you grinning at anything in particular?” Cam asked.
She focused in on him. He was irritated. Wait. Not just irritated, but actually holding her upright. When had that happened? “They like me. They really like me.”
“Okay, Sally Fields, let’s go.”
“They really do.”
“Look, don’t take this wrong, but it might have more to do with Serena wanting to hurt me than her liking you.”
Well, hell, if that didn’t cut through the nice buzz she had going. “Did you ever think that maybe not everything is about you?”
“She’s my ex, Katie.”
“And now she’s my friend.” She pulled free of Cam and went to straighten her glasses but managed only to poke herself in the eye. “Ouch.”
Cam tried to take a hold of her again, but she shook her head, which then swam. “Whoa.” She winced at both that and her increasingly slurred voice. Apparently, she really was quite tanked. “Listen, I might be your employee, and I might have a crush on you, and I might want to have some more…” She lowered her voice, “Sex.”
He blinked, and she poked him in the chest. “But that doesn’t mean you can tell me who to be friends with.”
He lifted his hands. “All I’m trying to do is take your drunk ass home.”
“I’m not—”
“Please, you’re ripped one hundred ways to next week.”
“You know what? Fine.”
“Fine.” He gestured ahead of him to his truck. She lifted her chin and took two steps toward it, then tripped over her own feet, hitting the sidewalk on all fours.
“Goddammit.” She was scooped up into a set of hard, warm arms. Which really was just where she wanted to be. So she sighed and snuggled in, pressing her face to his throat, exposed since she still had his scarf.
And then, because she couldn’t help herself, she kissed the warm flesh. And then, because she really couldn’t help herself, she gently sucked a patch of his skin into her mouth.
“Okay,” he said shakily. “None of that.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m no fun?”
“No, you’re not. In fact, you’re the opposite of fun. You, Cam Wilder, are a fun sucker.”
He opened his passenger door and deposited her inside, then came around and got in the driver’s side. “I’m the definition of fun.”
“If that were true, you’d have had me naked by now.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Not that drunk.”
He swore beneath his breath again and started the truck.
“Huh.”
He slid her a look. “Huh what?”
“I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
He said a big load of his famed nothing to that.
“You’re hard to read. I mean, sometimes I can tell. Like when you have your tongue down my throat, I know what you’re thinking then.”