by Noelle Adams
“Are you sure you want to go out tonight?” Carol asked. “We can just hang out if—”
“No. I have to go. Ryan and I have a contest, and I’m not going to just give up.” She turned to meet Carol’s eyes. “This is important to me. I’ve got to prove to myself that I can move on.”
Carol nodded, swallowing hard. “All right. Then let’s do this. You look gorgeous, like normal. The guys will be drooling all over you.”
“Maybe you can find a guy tonight too.”
Carol snorted. “Yeah right.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“No one even notices me at places like that. I blend into the background.”
“You do n—”
“Don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise. I’m just not a club girl. When I find a guy, it’s going to be... different.”
“If you’re expecting rose petals and a swelling orchestra to announce the love of your life, I’m afraid you might be a little disappointed.”
Carol’s eyes sparkled, and a smile twitched on her lips. “I’m not that silly. But when it happens, I’ll know it. And it’s not going to be at a club.”
Ginny laughed.
She could do this. Ryan wasn’t her whole world. She had her best friends and her tea shop and her family and her freedom.
Maybe she could even have a good time tonight.
TWO HOURS LATER AND Ginny was having to hold down a swell of nausea.
She’d drunk too much of her drink already—even though she knew it would mess her up. But every time she saw Ryan flirting with another woman, she simply had to do something to mask the pain.
It was torture. Torture. To know she could never have him, to see him with one woman after another. Women who might legitimately have a chance with him.
When she never would.
She was doing her best to make the rounds at the bar they’d decided to go to tonight, and she’d managed to collect four phone numbers. But her heart wasn’t in it. She kept getting distracted. And the men she talked to evidently could pick up on it.
All in all, it wasn’t a good night, and she kept finding herself taking another sip of her Cosmo.
It tasted good. But she was almost two-thirds of the way finished with it now, and her head was already spinning.
She couldn’t help but glance over at Ryan. He’d been talking to the redhead now for almost twenty minutes. He was smiling at her, and the smile looked real.
He must like her. For real. He’d never been good at faking that kind of thing. He attracted other people because he had a good heart, and the goodness seemed to spill over into his words, his smile, his eyes. People noticed it. They really liked it.
Ginny loved it.
But his heart wasn’t going to spill over into her anymore.
Ever again.
She felt the truth like a loss, heavy in her heart, and she took another sip as she tried to give the guy she was talking to another flirtatious look.
The guy’s eyes started to roam around the room.
She was about to lose him.
Damn, she was distracted tonight. Flirting usually came as natural to her as breathing, but she couldn’t seem to manage it tonight.
When the guy made an excuse and left her, Ginny’s stomach churned and she took another sip of her drink.
She looked around but saw no other immediately available guys, so she walked over to where Carol was sitting at a small table in the corner by herself.
“No luck?” Carol asked as Ginny approached and sat down next to her.
“No.”
“Your heart isn’t in it tonight. Guys can see that.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Just give it up then. We can go home and eat ice cream.”
Ginny wanted to do just that. She wanted it so much her hands started to shake. But that would be a defeat.
She glanced back and saw Ryan still talking to the redhead.
Her stomach churned again.
“Let’s go, Ginny,” Carol said in a different tone. “Please.”
Ginny’s eyes were burning, and her throat was aching, but she’d never backed down to weakness. Not once in her life.
She wasn’t going to do it now. “No. It’s still more than an hour until midnight, and I only have a few numbers. I’ve got to get more. But if you’re bored, you can—”
“I’m not going to leave you tonight. Are you crazy?”
Ginny had to swallow hard over a rising lump in her throat. “Okay. Thanks.”
“What are best friends for?” Carol’s smile was real but also worried, and she glanced down at the glass in Ginny’s hand. “You’ve already drunk too much of that. Don’t drink anymore. You don’t want to be sick, do you?”
“No. I don’t want to be sick.”
Ginny took a deep breath and willed herself back into action. When she stood up, her knees threatened to buckle and she had to take a few seconds to get her balance.
She’d already drunk too much.
The whole evening was torture. A nightmare devised by some cosmic, sadistic manipulator who evidently held a grudge against her.
Ryan was still talking to the redhead, and he’d leaned in closer so there were only a couple of inches between their faces.
He used to act like that with her. He used to want to be close to her.
It wasn’t so long ago that he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
But that time was over now. Long gone.
And it wasn’t coming back.
“You okay?” Carol asked softly.
“Yes. I’m going to get another phone number. Right now.”
She forced herself to walk, even though her legs ached, her heart ached. She found a couple of guys hanging out by the bar and headed toward them. They looked friendly, like they might be on the hunt for pretty girls.
She was smiling as she approached, and they were both eyeing her appreciatively.
This was easy. She could do it. She just had to make it through one more hour.
She chatted with them for a while, making herself focus on them instead of looking around for Ryan. And both of them seemed interested in her.
Maybe she could get two numbers from this one conversation.
She kept taking sips of her drink, however, as she talked to them. It was the only thing that made her feel better.
A spinning head was a lot better than an aching heart.
“You want another one?” one of the guys asked her, noticing her glass was almost empty.
She started to say no, but the question made her lose focus. Her eyes started to move around the club, back to where Ryan had been talking to the redhead.
He wasn’t there anymore.
She kept looking and saw him near the exit with the redhead still at his side.
He was leaving with her.
He really liked her.
He was going to have sex with her.
It didn’t matter that he’d just had sex with Ginny a week ago. He didn’t want her anymore. He wanted this redhead now.
He was moving on for real.
Ginny had lost him for good.
Her eyes blurred and her legs swayed, and she turned toward Carol, seeing that she was now talking to someone they’d known in high school. She wasn’t looking in Ginny’s direction. She wouldn’t see.
Ginny turned back to the guy blindly. “Sure,” she said with a smile that actually hurt. “I’ll have another one.”
A HALF HOUR LATER, Ginny was throwing up in the bathroom.
The heaves were forceful, painful, and she was barely capable of flushing the toilet when she was finally done before she slid down the wall onto the floor.
Normally, she wouldn’t dream of sitting on the floor of a public bathroom, but she had no other choice at the moment. Her eyes and nose were streaming. Her whole body had broken out in a cold sweat. She couldn’t stop trembling, and her legs wouldn’t hold her up.
She’d k
nown she’d be sick if she drank a second Cosmo, but she’d done so anyway.
Maybe part of her believed she deserved it. That her body should somehow match her damaged soul.
“You okay in there?” a voice came from outside her stall. Another woman had been in the bathroom when she’d started throwing up.
“Yeah,” she managed to say in a raspy voice. “Sorry about that.”
“Okay. Feel better.” The woman left quickly. Ginny didn’t blame her.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe, willing her stomach to stay settled since she really didn’t want to throw up again.
Some time passed.
She wasn’t in a fit state to measure time, so she didn’t know if it was one minute or fifteen. But eventually she was aware of someone knocking on her stall door.
“Ginny. Ginny, let me in.”
Carol.
Of course.
She had come to find her.
There was no way Ginny could manage to stand up, but she was able to reach up far enough to open the door latch. Carol pushed it in, closing it again after she’d entered since there wasn’t room enough for both of them and the opened door in the stall.
“Oh no, Ginny,” Carol said, her face twisting with worry. “Just from one drink?”
Ginny shook her head and couldn’t seem to stop shaking it. “I had two.”
“Oh no,” Carol said again. She leaned down toward her. “Well, come on. I’ll get you home.”
Ginny tried. She really tried. She started to stand up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her, even with Carol’s support. She ended up on the floor again, dizzy and washed with new waves of heat.
She wasn’t going to be able to get home with just Carol’s help. Not yet anyway.
“Let me get Ryan,” Carol said, obviously coming to the same conclusion.
“No!” Ginny gasped. “No.”
“We need help, Ginny.”
“Not him.” Tears were streaming down her face, and she knew she was going to throw up again. Soon. “He... he left with... redhead.”
“But—”
When Ginny whimpered, Carol broke off whatever she’d been going to say. She bit her lip.
“Noah,” Ginny managed to rasp.
“He and Emma went to Roanoke this evening. Remember? It would take him an hour to get here.”
Ginny hardly heard the words. Her eyes had blurred, and something terrible was rising inside her again.
She barely made it to the toilet before her stomach started heaving again.
While she threw up, Carol left the stall and returned with a wad of wet paper towels. When Ginny collapsed on the floor again, Carol handed the paper towels to her.
Ginny mopped up her face while Carol pulled up a number on her phone.
“Not Ryan.” Her throat hurt so much she could hardly get the words out.
“Not Ryan,” Carol confirmed. “Patrick. His place is just a few blocks away. He’ll come. I know he will.”
Ginny didn’t want Patrick to see her like this, but he was far better than Ryan.
GINNY MUST HAVE ALMOST passed out on the floor of the bathroom because no time seemed to have gone by at all when she was aware of a man in the stall, leaning over her, reaching down to help her to her feet.
Patrick. His hair was messy, and he wore track pants and an Iron Man T-shirt. He’d obviously not planned to go out this evening.
“Sorry,” Ginny whispered. Her throat hurt too much to speak normally. “Sorry.”
“Damn, you’re a mess,” Patrick said, putting an arm around her waist as she leaned on him. When she stepped out of the stall, Carol was waiting to support her from the other side. “Why the hell did you have two drinks?”
Ginny’s legs didn’t want to work, and she was starting to get dizzy again. “I...”
“Lord save me from this never-ending soap opera,” Patrick muttered.
“Don’t be rude,” Carol told him. “You’re here to help, not offer snide commentary.”
“Why the hell can’t I do both?”
In another situation, Ginny would have wanted to laugh, but all her effort was used staying on her feet. Patrick was just her height, and Carol was about four inches shorter, but between them Ginny could just manage to walk without dragging her feet.
They went out the back door of the bar and took an alley over to the block where Emma’s apartment building was. They had to stop once for Ginny to vomit again, the force of it throwing her onto her knees, but eventually they made it.
The stairs up to Emma’s unit was the last hurdle, and eventually they managed to get there and then get to the little guest room where Ginny always slept.
She let out a long breath of relief when she could finally lie down.
Carol pulled off her shoes and told Patrick to get a wet washcloth. Ginny closed her eyes in the exquisite luxury of not having to stay on her feet.
“Thanks, Patrick,” she heard Carol saying, which meant he must have returned to the room. “I really appreciate you coming to help. Ginny does too.”
Ginny grunted and hoped that would be understood as a sign of agreement.
“I was just working.”
“You shouldn’t be working on a Saturday night,” Carol said.
Ginny vaguely wanted to see their expressions as they talked, but she couldn’t quite open her eyes.
“Why the hell not? It’s better than this.”
Ginny could hardly argue with that fact, and then she forgot about the conversation when she felt the cool, wet washcloth on her face.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. She assumed it was Carol who was wiping her face since that wasn’t in Patrick’s wheelhouse.
“You’re welcome,” Carol said. “If you keep throwing up, I’m going to take you to the emergency room.”
“I don’t need—”
“Alcohol does a number on you. It always has. I’m not going to risk it if you keep throwing up.”
Ginny didn’t have the energy to argue. She just prayed she wouldn’t keep throwing up.
More time passed. She had no idea how much. But eventually her eyes opened when she became aware of someone laying on the buzzer from the street entrance to the building.
“Who...” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. She knew who it would be. It must be after midnight now, and Ryan would have finished screwing the redhead and returned to the club to count up their phone numbers like usual.
He would wonder where she was.
“Don’t let him up,” she mumbled.
“Damn it,” Patrick muttered. “Damn it all to hell.”
Ginny couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out if he was going to listen to her or not.
RYAN WAS HAVING A CRAPPY night.
All he wanted to do was stay at home with his dogs, but instead he was having to put on a normal face and pretend to flirt with a bunch of strangers. He’d managed to go through the motions and had collected four numbers, but he was actually glad of the reprieve when a redhead asked him to walk her to her car.
He knew what the woman wanted, but there was no way she was going to get it. Not from him anyway.
He was glad of the fresh air though, and he was able to send the redhead off without too much trouble. She looked disappointed, but there was nothing he could do about that.
He didn’t want anyone but Ginny, and no matter how much he tried, that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.
When she drove away, he didn’t want to return to the bar. So he killed some time walking around downtown and found a buddy at a coffee shop and chatted with him for a while.
By the time he finally returned, it was eleven thirty.
And Ginny was gone.
He looked everywhere, but there was no sign of her. Carol had left too.
He knew she wouldn’t have just bailed on him. Even if she’d wanted to, she never would have let him score a victory like that. It wasn’t in her nature. So there were two choices. Either she’d found a guy
she liked and left with him, or something was wrong.
When he thought about it rationally, he doubted that Ginny would leave with a guy. They’d just had sex a week ago, and it had meant something to her. He was sure of it. He might not be her forever, but he didn’t believe she’d want to hook up with someone else so quickly.
Maybe she had though.
Maybe another guy was between her legs right now, making her moan, feeling her hot, tight body all around him.
The visual made Ryan want to punch something.
Or there was another option.
Maybe something was wrong.
That thought rankled even more than the idea of her sleeping with someone else. He called her, but she didn’t answer, and that made him worry even more. He called Carol then, but she didn’t answer either. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself striding down the sidewalk toward Emma’s building.
If she’d gone home, that was likely where she’d ended up.
He prayed she was okay, and he prayed she didn’t have a guy with her as he buzzed up to be let into the building.
When no one answered immediately, he buzzed again. Then again. Then he held down the buzzer, feeling desperation rising inside him.
If she wasn’t here, he would have absolutely no idea where to look for her.
He was just about to try calling again when the door opened, nearly knocking him over.
Patrick stepped out.
Ryan blinked, his vision whiting out as he processed the other man’s presence. Patrick. Here. After midnight. With Ginny.
Every muscle in his body clenched painfully.
“She’s with you?” he asked hoarsely.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, man. Get a grip.”
Ryan blinked again, suddenly realizing how stupid he was being. He knew better than to believe Patrick would ever do something like that to him even if he and Ginny were somehow attracted to each other.
He knew they weren’t.
“Is she okay?” Ryan asked.
“She’s okay.”