Undaunted

by Joss Wood

  “Reagan, you’re back! Yay!” Flick jumped up and surprised her with a quick, impulsive hug before glancing at her watch. “You have fifteen minutes to get ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “We have tickets to that concert in D.C.”

  “What concert?” Reagan asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Flick looked impatient. “Jonas Nicks. Hot, sexy, sings like he has gravel in his mouth. D.C., we’re leaving in fifteen.” Flick tapped the face of her watch. “Get cracking, honey.”

  “I don’t want to go to a concert and, more importantly, I don’t have anything to wear to a concert,” Reagan wailed, seeing her bath, book, and bliss flying out of the window.

  “It’s a girls’ night out,” Pippa told her, “no couch surfing allowed tonight! Go and hop in the shower.”

  “I really don’t want to go out,” Reagan told them, but she was starting to accept that she was fighting a losing battle.

  Tally grinned. “Pippa said it . . . No couch surfing allowed. You have ten minutes.”

  Reagan narrowed her eyes at the teenager. She was still a teenager, wasn’t she? Either way, she was far too young to boss her about. Tally didn’t even look remotely chastised.

  “Kai uses that same look on me all the time and it doesn’t work,” she cheerfully informed her. “You now have nine minutes.”

  Reagan tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling. “You’re going to drag me out of here, aren’t you?”

  “We so are because you, Reagan Hudson, look like a girl who desperately needs to let her hair down,” Flick told her, smiling. “Eight minutes, kiddo.”

  Reagan was out of the shower in five.

  ***

  On a high from the concert, the four Mercy women walked from the theater down the bar-lined street and, after a five-minute argument, decided to have a drink at a club called Smithy’s. Reagan had protested that Tally was underage but Pip and Flick had waved her protestations away, telling Tally that, if she could get past the bouncers, she could come in, but that she wasn’t allowed any alcohol. The only person who was surprised that Tally had a fake ID was her . . . Go figure.

  The club was the antithesis to Jack’s establishment: slick, black and pink, filled with men in sharp suits and women wearing just enough to remain decent. There were big, surly, burly bouncers at the door, and the edgy gazes of their colleagues inside the premises suggested that they were on the lookout for trouble and that they frequently found it. Reagan, all her sense on high alert, went into bodyguard mode and immediately walked over to a booth overlooking the dance floor. She ignored the scowls of another group of women who’d wanted the seats, and waited for her friends to slide into the booth.

  She was the last to take her seat, idly noticing a guy slipping a baggie onto a palm as he slapped hands with a clubber. Ecstasy, probably. A young girl, probably underage, was giving a guy in his thirties something that looked like a lap dance in the corner, and the dancer on a podium looked wasted.

  Just another city club, Reagan thought as she sat down.

  She placed her hand on Tally’s arm to get her attention. “Don’t leave your glass unattended, don’t drink from the jugs of water on the bar, and keep your glass in front of you at all times.”

  Three pairs of eyes stared at her hard tone. Realizing that she’d been barking orders like a drill sergeant, Reagan bit her lip and shrugged. “Sorry. This place sends me into work mode.”

  Flick surprised her when she placed a hand on hers and squeezed. “We know the drill, Reagan. We’ll stick together, we’ll leave together, and we won’t buy any drugs from dodgy characters.”

  Reagan winced. “You’re mocking me.”

  Flick grinned. “Just a little. You, my friend, are off duty and I’m buying you a large drink! What do you want?”

  After another discussion, they decided that mojitos were in order, with an order of a soda for Tally.

  “Hey, you’re in an adult club and if Kai found out he’d kill me! I’m not adding to my sins by allowing you alcohol,” Flick told Tally when she protested. “Besides, you, my darling, are driving the big people home.”

  “Crap,” Tally muttered. “I can’t wait to be twenty-one.”

  “I’ll drive us home,” Reagan told her. She hated not being in the driver’s seat, and one drink was her limit. Reagan jammed her elbow into Tally’s ribs. “Cute guy eyeing you at two o’clock. I think he wants to dance with you.”

  Tally looked over and shook her head. “Not interested.”

  Pippa leaned across the table to talk to Tally. “It’s a dance, Tall, not a wedding proposal. You love to dance, so go and show your moves.”

  “But what if he . . . tries something?” Tally asked, sending the blond guy a quick look.

  “What’s he going to do to you on a dance floor, angel?” Pippa asked. “And Reagan will keep an eye on you. If he does anything we’ll send her over and she can dislocate his knee or something.”

  “Easy peasy,” Reagan assured her.

  “I don’t know.” Tally bit her bottom lip.

  “It’s okay, Tally,” Pippa murmured.

  Seeing her fear-laced indecision at war with her desire to be a normal young woman who wanted to dance with a hot, young guy, Reagan reached across the table to touch her arm and snag her attention. “I’ll keep watch, Tal. It’s what I do.”

  Tally stood up, shrugged out of her denim jacket, and sent the blond a tentative smile. She stopped at the stairs leading down to the dance floor and looked back at them, still hesitant. Reagan gave her a reassuring smile and Tally took a deep breath as she headed down the stairs, Blond Guy on her heels.

  Reagan and Pippa watched her dance, watched the joy on her face as she undulated to the music. Flick returned with their drinks, placed them in front of them, and frowned. “Where’s Tally?”

  Reagan nodded to the dance floor. “We persuaded her to take a spin.”

  Flick grinned when she saw Tally smiling at the Blond Guy, who was, Reagan noticed, keeping a respectful distance. He could also, she noticed, move his nice—but far too young!—body. “Well done, you two! How the hell did you get her dancing, and with a guy?”

  “By promising that I’ll keep an eye out for trouble.”

  “Thanks, Reags. Her fear of men is not normal.” Flick frowned. “Something happened but she won’t tell Kai or me what.”

  “Is she still taking self-defense classes with Mac?” Pippa asked.

  “Yeah, and she’s pretty good but she needs to practice and she’s far too good at it to spar with me, or any of the other female attendees. And she won’t spar with a guy, so she doesn’t practice,” Flick explained, stirring her mojito with the tip of her finger.

  “I could spar with her,” Reagan offered. “I can give her a run for her money.”

  Flick nodded, grateful. “That would be stunning, thank you. Now, are you sleeping with Axl or not?”

  Reagan, who’d been about to swallow a sip of her mojito, choked. “Uh . . . what?”

  Flick rolled her eyes. “That sounded like English to me. Did it sound like English to you?” she asked Pippa, who grinned.

  “And you didn’t even use any difficult words,” Pippa drawled, before placing her lips around her straw. She must have seen something on her face, because her expression softened. “Okay, let’s try something a little less difficult. What’s going on between you and Axl?”

  “Why would you think that there’s something going on between us?” Reagan asked, stirring her drink with her straw.

  “Because you two go on high alert around each other? You fairly crackle and pop with electricity.” Flick waved her hand around, and the big diamond on her left hand sparkled.

  There was no point in trying to convince them otherwise, Reagan thought. It was, after all, the very inconvenient tru
th. “We’ve slept together. And we’re going to do that some more . . .”

  Flick leaned across the table, her expression merry. “It was good, wasn’t it? Tell me it was good!”

  Pippa smacked her shoulder. “Hey, engaged girl! Behave.”

  Flick wrinkled her nose. “Oh, pooh! I might be ridiculously in love but that doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of how attractive other men are. And, my darlings, Axl is a fifteen on the one-he-looks-like-a-serial-killer-to-ten-he’s-Chris-Hemsworth scale of attractiveness. Kai is, naturally, off the charts.”

  “Naturally.” Pippa rolled her eyes before cocking her head. “So, is it just sex or something else?”

  Really? “Is this what you two do? Keep nagging until you get an answer?”

  Flick nodded. “Pretty much.”

  The music changed and Reagan looked out onto the dance floor and easily spotted Tally, who was still dancing with a healthy distance between her and her dance partner. She leaned back into the booth and tapped her nail against the table. She didn’t know how much to tell them. She had no experience with feminine friendships. “Neither of us are interested in a relationship, so we’re going to try and be friends who have sex.”

  “And you think you can do that? Be that?” Flick asked.

  “Of course I do,” Reagan answered.

  “And you know the rules?” Pippa demanded, leaning across the table.

  Flick sent her cousin an amused look. “Are you saying that you know the rules to having an FWB?”

  Pippa glared at her. “I’m not a complete idiot, Felicity!”

  “Not saying that you are,” Flick cheerfully responded. “I am saying that you haven’t had sex in a very long time.”

  “Why do you assume that?”

  “Because I haven’t seen or heard anyone doing the walk of shame down our passage at dawn.”

  “Because sex only takes place at night? Since when? And how boring is that?” Pippa asked, oh so innocently.

  Flick’s jaw dropped to the table. “Are you telling me that you are having sex that I don’t know about?”

  “Maybe.” Pippa looked smug.

  “More importantly,” Reagan interjected when she saw the hundred questions flash across Flick’s face. “What rules? There are rules to having uncomplicated sex?”

  “There are rules for everything,” Pippa replied.

  “And that’s life according to Pippa.” Flick waved her finger under Pippa’s nose. “We’re not done with this subject.” She slapped her hands on the table. “Friends with benefits rules . . . Okay, let’s go. You’re up, Miss I-might-be-having-sex-but-haven’t-told-my-best-friend.”

  Pippa ignored her and focused her attention on Reagan, who was enjoying these women far more than she expected to. “This might not be a rule but you have to be aware that no matter how hard you try to be buddies, sometimes one of you—either of you—could catch feelings.”

  Pippa made it sound like a contagious disease, and Reagan agreed with her. She most certainly didn’t want to catch feelings. “Yeah, neither of us wants to do that.”

  “Sometimes it happens despite you not wanting it to. Neither of us wanted a relationship and now we’re engaged,” Flick said.

  Reagan blanched. Shit. That didn’t help.

  “Not helping, Fee,” Pippa stated. “No matter what you do, you’ve got to remember that the sex is temporary. You have to be extra careful about protecting your heart because he’s part of your life already. You are friends with his friends, you work together, you are part of each other’s daily routine.”

  Oh, dear.

  “Try not to cuddle.” Flick jumped into the conversation. “I was at my gooeyest when we did some post-sex cuddling. It was intimate and I felt closer to Kai then. Don’t let him sleep over and avoid the early-morning awkwardness. Boot him out after sex.”

  “That sounds so cold,” Reagan protested.

  “Okay, then keep him around and start feeling all warm and fuzzy around him,” Flick said. “Not that I, necessarily, think that’s a bad thing. I think you and Axl would be great, long-term, for each other.”

  “Ignore her,” Pippa instructed. “She’s on this quest to get us all loved up.”

  “I’ll settle for sexed up,” Reagan joked.

  Pippa raised an eyebrow at Flick. “It works for me.”

  Flick glared at her. “Oh, you are so messing with me.”

  Pippa grinned and turned her attention back to Reagan. “If you and Axl decide to do this FWB thing, then you have to remember that he isn’t your boyfriend, that you have no right to expect him to be faithful. He is not, I repeat, not your boyfriend. If you catch him with another girl on a date, or you hear that he’s dating someone else, he is not cheating on you.”

  “Of course, you’re also free to date, and sleep with, someone else,” Flick added.

  Reagan pulled a face. With her lack of experience, she was still wrapping her head around sleeping with one guy. There was no way she could juggle two! Reagan, feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this new information, took a far-too-big sip of her mojito and saw, to her surprise, that she’d drunk most of her cocktail. Dammit, how did that happen?

  “So, to recap,” Pippa said. “He should be low-key and you should try not to socialize with him. If you want this to work on a purely love-him-and-leave basis, then you have to avoid the things that could lead to creating a long-term connection. It’s temporary; the two of you and what you have is temporary, so it’s best not to see him socially, though that might be hard. Most of all, you have to guard your heart, Reags. Seriously.”

  Reags, she loved the fact that these women seemed to care about her enough to call her by a pet name, seemed to like her enough to dole out advice, to make sure that she protected herself. If this was what having girlfriends meant, then she kind of liked it.

  “Thanks,” Reagan said through a suddenly closed throat. “For the advice.”

  “If you ever need someone to talk to, we’re your girls—”

  Reagan interrupted Pippa’s sentence by standing up and looking at the dance floor. Tally stood behind Blond Guy, who seemed to be exchanging some harsh words with two older, rougher-looking guys. Tally looked up, caught her eye, and Reagan immediately saw her fear. Reagan left the booth, and when she reached the steps, she saw Tally approaching, her hand in Blond Guy’s and the two guys glaring at their backs.

  “What happened?” Reagan asked as she turned around to walk back up the steps.

  “Jerks,” Blond Guy yelled in her ear. “They wanted to dance with her and wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Reagan looked over his shoulder and saw that the two knuckleheads were still scowling at them. Reagan held their stare and eventually they turned around and disappeared into the crowd.

  “Thanks for looking after her.”

  Blond Guy—she couldn’t keep calling him that, so Reagan asked for his name. Eli shook her hand as Reagan introduced herself.

  “I’d like to go now,” Tally said, her face white.

  “We can do that,” Reagan told her and sent the disappointed Eli a commiserating smile.

  “I’ve got your number. Uh, maybe we can have coffee sometime,” Eli suggested, his eyes on Tally.

  Tally shrugged. “Maybe. Thanks, you know, for your help. And the dance.”

  “Sure. I really hope I see you again.”

  Tally smiled and, most unexpectedly, reached up and dropped a kiss on his cheek. Blushing furiously, she quickly walked back to Pippa and Flick, who were trying to play it cool and hide their astonishment.

  Reagan left the young man—give him ten years and he’d be a heartbreaker—and walked back to her friends. Her friends, those words had a nice ring to them. “It’s late, maybe we should head out. And I’ll drive.”

  “You just want to drive the Beast,” Flick muttered as she handed over
the keys to Kai’s luxury SUV.

  Reagan grinned. “No, it’s because I’m a control freak.”

  “So is Axl,” Pippa murmured as she stood up. “Oh, yeah, this is going to be so much fun to watch.”

  ***

  They filed out of the club into the cool night and breathed in the fresh, exhaust-tinged air. Flick pulled a hunk of hair to her nose and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”

  “Expensive drinks, drug dealers, and I’m pretty sure there was some lap dancing going on at the back of the room.” Pippa looped her arm around Tally’s neck and gave her a quick squeeze. “Classy joint, Tall.”

  Tally ducked away and pulled a tongue at her. “But Jonas Nicks was good.”

  “His abs were spectacular, but his music?” Flick rocked her hand. “Meh.”

  Tally looked insulted. “He is going to be the next big thing,” she hotly protested.

  Reagan held up her hand to interrupt their argument. “More importantly, the car. Want me to run back and get it and you guys wait here? Or shall we all walk back together?”

  Reagan looked down the street and realized that this end of the street was emptier than farther down the block and didn’t give her friends any time to answer. “We’ll walk together. I don’t want you guys waiting here on your own.”

  Pippa and Flick nodded their agreement and they started walking, two abreast, down to the busier section of the street and toward the brightly lit parking lot.

  “But those abs,” Flick mused. “They were stupid-making. There’s nothing quite like letting your fingers dance up the ridges of a man’s cut stomach—”

  “Eew!” Tally slapped her hands over her ears. “You’re talking about Kai’s abs and that’s just gross.” She shuddered dramatically. “My ears are bleeding.”

  Reagan grinned, thinking that Axl’s abdominal pack was as good as Kai’s. Hell, in her humble opinion, his was even better. And Flick was right, hard muscle under your fingertips was just the bomb.

  “Tally!”