by Heidi Betts
This time, the lift of his lips was one hundred percent humor. “I forgot how vicious and bloodthirsty you could be.”
She smiled back. The smile of a cat who’s just picked the lock on the canary’s cage and swallowed his last yellow feather. “No you didn’t.”
For a second, he didn’t respond. And then he threw his head back, letting out a deep, belly-rumbling laugh. Dylan, Ronnie, Gage, and Jenna all whipped around, staring at them as though they’d just sprouted wings and cloven hooves, and the rest of the Box patrons followed suit.
Rather than being embarrassed, Grace thought it was funny. Every single person in the bar knew who she and Zack were, she was sure. She was also fairly certain everyone was well aware of their nasty breakup and the turbulent state of their relationship since then. Because of that, they had to be scrambling to figure out what was going on with the two of them sitting so close and laughing together.
She wondered how many would be on their phones within the next minute or two, calling and texting their friends or passing the information on to contacts they might have in the media.
“Good comeback,” Zack said, paying zero attention to the eyeballs still riveted on them from every direction. “Definitely deserving of a drink. Can I buy you one?”
Throwing her shoulders back and casting a glance toward the bar, she said, “Sure. I’ll have a Cosmopolitan. You can have it sent over to me at that table.” She pointed a finger in Melanie’s direction, then slid her chair back and got to her feet. “Come on, girls, let’s get away from all this testosterone and go have a few frilly, girly umbrella drinks.”
Ronnie and Jenna both stood, but before she’d completely slipped off Dylan’s lap, Ronnie muttered, “I don’t know, testosterone does have its merits.”
Then she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, as did Jenna to Gage’s, and the three of them headed to the back of the bar.
Row 15
“What was that about?” Ronnie wanted to know the minute they hit their seats at the back of the bar, well out of earshot of the guys.
“What was what about?” Grace asked, though she had a pretty good idea what her friend meant.
“The laughing. The grins. You and Zack acting like you’re old buddies and maybe …” She waggled her brows and then finished suggestively, “more?”
“I heard that,” Melanie said. “I thought I was hallucinating. Either that, or you were about to stab a fork into his thigh to teach him a lesson about being overly amused at your expense.”
Grace shrugged, folding her coat over the back of the booth seat and setting her purse at her feet. “Inside joke,” she said, unwilling to elaborate. “Besides, I told you at the meeting that we’re getting along better. I no longer fantasize about using him as a dart board.”
A waitress appeared with a pitcher of pretty pink liquid and four empty martini glasses. “Cosmos,” she announced, “courtesy of that table over there.”
She gestured toward Zack, Gage, and Dylan, and when they all turned in their direction, the three men raised their glasses of beer in salute.
“Well, that’s awfully nice,” Melanie remarked.
“Yeah. Wonder what made them feel so generous all of a sudden,” Ronnie added in a much wryer tone, as though she had some suspicions of her own about what had caused one of them, at least, to spring for their first round of drinks.
Ignoring both women, Grace lifted her attention to the waitress and said, “We’re expecting one more person, so we may need another glass. Unless Charlotte would prefer wine or something.”
The young woman in the skimpy shorts and tank Penalty Box uniform nodded. “Can I get you ladies anything else?”
The four of them exchanged glances, then responded in the negative. “Nothing right now, thanks,” Grace said.
A second after the waitress moved away, Charlotte bustled through the front door. She stood a few steps in for a moment, scanning the crowd until she spotted them, then made her way around tables and other patrons until she reached them. She struggled out of her bulky, oversize coat—the green so bright, it burned Grace’s retinas—before sliding into the booth beside Melanie, who scooted over to give her room.
“You’ve started without me, I see,” Charlotte remarked, but without a hint of disappointment or censure.
“The guys sent us a pitcher of Cosmopolitans before we even had a chance to order,” Jenna supplied. “We didn’t know if you’d like this or a glass of wine instead.”
“Hmm.” Charlotte studied the pink concoction in the pitcher and their four funnel-shaped glasses while she wiggled around, trying to find a comfortable position for her well-padded bottom. “I think I’ll go with a nice glass of red wine, thank you. You girls enjoy that.”
As soon as their waitress came into view again, they waved her down so Charlotte could place her order, then turned back and settled in for a friendly, relaxing chat about nothing in particular.
Or so Grace thought. She’d expected—apparently prematurely—that whatever curiosity had been roused about her and Zack by the round of free drinks had been forgotten with Charlotte’s arrival and the change of subject.
“So,” Jenna threw out, aiming her question at Grace and Grace alone before anyone else got the chance to speak, “is there anything more going on with you two?”
“All right, all right,” she relented on a long-suffering sigh. “But you have to swear…swear…’cross your hearts, hope to die, stick a knitting needle in your eye’ swear …that you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not your husbands, lovers, best friends, priests, or clergy of your choice.”
She narrowed her eyes and stared down each and every woman at the table. “Swear it, or you can go right on wondering and speculating until monkeys take over the world.”
There was murmuring, whispering, bent heads, and intense expressions. Finally they all looked at her, and Ronnie—who had apparently appointed herself spokesperson for the group—nodded. “We swear. Cross our hearts …” Each and every one of them began going through the motions of the old childhood pledge. “Hope to die. Stick a knitting needle in my eye.”
That was about as good as it was going to get. So now she either had to come clean or back out and risk having four drinks—with glasses—launched at her head.
Taking a deep breath, she counted to ten and clutched the stem of her martini glass until her knuckles turned white. Then she blurted out what had been squeezing her heart and scrambling her brain for the better part of the day: “He kissed me.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Oh, my goodness.”
“Oh, my.”
Blurted exclamations went around the table like toppling dominoes. Grace could feel her face heating, her stomach doing somersaults while they regarded her with wide eyes and even wider mouths.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ronnie said. She slapped the tabletop with a flat palm, tossed back the last of her drink, and refilled her glass, then gulped down another good portion of that. “Go back. Start at the beginning. We need details.”
Grace didn’t want to, but since the cat was out of the bag, she didn’t seem to have much choice.
“We were in the kitchen, talking about our trip to New York, and he just leaned in, grabbed me, and started kissing.”
“And I’m sure you remained stiff as a board, not kissing him back the least little bit, right?” Jenna pressed, a teasing note to her tone.
“I wish,” Grace said, letting out a baffled breath and making herself admit to her true reaction to The Kiss. “The minute his lips touched mine, it was like my brain melted and dribbled right out my ears. If he hadn’t twisted his knee, I probably would have stripped him down and done things with him that would have put him back in his wheelchair.”
Ronnie gave a low whistle, while Jenna chuckled even as her cheeks pinkened, and Melanie whoohooed. Only Charlotte remained silent, though her eyes sparkled and the corners of her mouth twitched merrily.
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br /> “So did you?” Melanie asked. “Jump his bones, I mean?”
Jenna elbowed her in the side. “She just said she didn’t. But only because he hurt his knee.”
Melanie blinked, looking slightly dazed and disconcerted. “Oh, right. I guess I got a little carried away imagining all that hot sex.”
“What’s the matter, Mel? Things running a bit on the cold side at home these days?” Ronnie queried.
The brunette rolled her eyes heavenward. “You try finding time to get naked and nasty when you’ve got two small kids underfoot twenty-four hours a day.”
“Aw, poor Melanie,” Ronnie said with a chuckle. “But think how much hot, sweaty sex you got to have before the munchkins came along.”
Melanie’s expression turned vacant and she tilted her head with a sigh. “Ahhh, those were the days.”
Grace remembered. Not the “before kids” part, but definitely the hot, sweaty sex. She remembered, and she missed it, which was probably why Zack’s kiss had turned her so upside down and inside out.
“What are you going to do?” Jenna asked her, toying with the stem of her glass, but not touching the Cosmo that still rose almost to the rim.
“About what?” Grace asked.
“About Zack. Do you think there’s something there? Do you think there’s any chance the two of you can work things out and get back together?”
The question caught Grace off guard, though maybe it shouldn’t have. Wasn’t that the exact same question that had been running through her head ever since The Kiss had taken place?
She might not have acknowledged it or let herself wonder about it too closely for too long, but it was there, floating in the ether and tugging at her like an invisible thread.
A week or two ago, the answer would have been simple. She’d have responded with a resounding NO! No way, no how, not in this lifetime.
But, oh, how things could change in the space of only a week, or a day, or an hour. Now, she just didn’t know.
Which was what she told her friends, very frankly.
“Do you still have feelings for him?” Melanie asked softly.
“Of course,” she responded truthfully and without having to think about it for even a second. “But I’m not sure they’re all good feelings. Am I still attracted to him? Sure. Do I want to be with him again? I honestly don’t know. Am I still angry with him? Yes and no. I’m not sure I know how to feel about him these days, because it all depends on whether or not he cheated on me back in Columbus or before, and I don’t know what the hell to believe about that anymore.”
Feeling more frustrated than ever, she picked up her Cosmo and gulped, enjoying the warm sting of alcohol sliding its way down her throat to pool in her belly.
Ahh, vodka, the perfect cure-all. If only it lasted more than a few precious hours.
“Well, I, for one, hope you do get back together,” Melanie said with conviction. Cosmo-bolstered conviction, maybe, but conviction all the same. “I thought you made a great couple, and a big part of me wants to believe that Zack didn’t cheat on you.”
Though Grace had never put her exact thoughts into words before, she found it effortless to do so now. “Me, too,” she admitted.
“So maybe you should give him a second chance,” Ronnie suggested.
At Grace’s sharp look, she said, “I know, I know, it won’t be easy. But I’ve grilled Dylan within an inch of his life, and if he knew or even suspected Zack had truly been unfaithful, he’d have said so by now.”
Even though Grace wasn’t at all sure it was the right thing to do or if she had the resolve to follow through on it, she made herself open her mouth and say, “I guess I could try.”
“There you go,” Ronnie chimed cheerily. She even leaned into Grace, nudging her harder than necessary with her shoulder.
Grace only wished she felt the same level of enthusiasm. Instead, a lump the size of a hockey puck seemed to have wedged itself solidly behind the wall of her chest.
“Wait a minute.” The now-empty drink pitcher gave a clunk as Ronnie set it back in the center of the table. She glanced around, brows drawn down in a frown.
“What’s the matter?” Grace asked.
Pointing her finger at each of the women in their party, Ronnie said, “Charlotte had wine. The rest of us had Cosmos, and I’ve refilled almost everyone’s glass at least once. Everybody’s but Jenna’s.”
All eyes turned in that direction. The petite, dark-haired woman blushed and shrank back slightly against the bench seat. Sure enough, her martini glass was still full and pushed a few inches farther away than one might expect.
“I’m not thirsty,” she said, but the excuse sounded lame even to her own ears, if her downcast glance was any indication.
“Would you like something else?” Grace inquired, a sneaking suspicion beginning to play through her mind. “A soda, maybe? Or just plain cranberry juice?”
Jenna’s head jerked up, her wide eyes making her look decidedly guilty…of something.
“Oh, my God!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God!”
Grace’s mouth curved in a sly smile.
“You’re pregnant!” Ronnie’s exclamation was nearly loud enough to echo off the walls and be heard over the rest of the din filling the bar.
“Shhhhhh,” Jenna hissed, cringing as she whipped a worried glance in the direction of the men’s table. “I haven’t told Gage yet, and he would kill me if he found out he wasn’t the first to know.”
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” Ronnie said again, this time in a stage whisper that wouldn’t be overheard by anyone who wasn’t at their table, let alone across the room. “This is wonderful. I’m so happy for you. Congratulations!”
Which pretty much summed up everybody’s feelings, but they each added their own exuberant wishes, either hugging her or reaching out to squeeze her arm, depending on where they were seated around the table.
“When did you find out?” Grace asked, beaming. Despite the mess her own life was in at the moment, she was thoroughly delighted for her friend.
Jenna had been wanting a baby ever since she and Gage married the first time. Though he’d been on board at first, something along the way had changed his mind, and that change had caused them to split.
They were married again, thank goodness—if any two people had ever belonged together, it was Gage and Jenna—and this time, they were both on the same page about starting a family. In fact, according to Jenna, Gage had been almost single-minded in his intention to knock her up. Either that, or he just really, really liked making love to his wife.
Grace supposed that was the real motivation behind his attentiveness…and the trying-for-a-baby thing was just a nice side benefit and excuse for getting vertical as often as possible.
“Last week,” Jenna told them. “I want it to be a surprise, though, so I’m planning to tell him this weekend before we go house hunting. He’s going to flip,” she said, and it was her turn to beam.
Row 16
Grace and Zack spent the rest of the week and weekend slowly packing and making arrangements for being out of town, then set off first thing Monday morning for New York. Being behind the wheel of his big, blue Hummer was kind of like driving a tank, Grace thought, and for the first hour or two of their trip, she had an overwhelming urge to put on camouflage and combat boots.
But the ride was smooth and comfortable, even for Bruiser, who sat like a third passenger on the floor of the backseat, head hovering between them. Thank goodness she’d given him one of his special breath-freshening bones before they left, otherwise the Saint Bernard’s heated panting would have knocked them out within the first five minutes. As it was, every once in a while he would slap his lips together, and she and Zack would both be sprayed with little dots of doggy slobber.
Grace was surprised, actually, by how comfortable the drive turned out to be. She’d expected at least a modicum of uneasiness after the kiss, especially considering her mind-set when s
he’d left The Penalty Box Wednesday night. But Zack had been in such a good mood all week, she found his upbeat demeanor infectious.
Was he so chipper because he thought she was going to let him kiss her again? Or worse yet, that he might get laid?
Or was he simply feeling better and feeling more relaxed around her?
That would be okay, she decided. She was starting to feel more comfortable around him, too. And she was trying, really trying, to take Ronnie’s advice and give him another chance.
Not that she’d printed up some giant banner or made a flowery speech to alert him to her latest resolution. No, she was going slow, playing it smart.
She was going to try her best not to constantly think of him as a cheater or the man who’d betrayed her, letting that perception color her every interaction with him. She was trying to go into this with a blank slate, treating him the same as she had when they’d first met and begun dating.
Or trying to, anyway. Because Ronnie and Jenna and Melanie were right—if he hadn’t cheated on her, it would be a true shame and the biggest regret of her life for them not to be together.
Traveling the straight shot of Interstate 80 through Ohio and the entire length of Pennsylvania, they stopped regularly at rest areas and fast food restaurants so Zack and Bruiser could both stretch their legs. Though Grace could have gone much longer, she didn’t mind the frequent breaks, and took the opportunities to walk around or use the restroom, too.
They took turns staying with Bruiser and picking where to eat. It was all very amicable, almost as though they’d never separated. She imagined if they’d taken road trips together while they’d been engaged, they would have been just like this—slow and easy and even fun.
It was dark out, already seven or eight o’clock, and Bruiser was sound asleep stretched door to door on the backseat when she asked Zack to dig out the Map-Quest directions she’d printed that would get them to their hotels each night. Turning on one of the overhead interior lights, he studied the pages and started telling her where to turn until they reached the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express right off the main highway.