Thanks For Last Night: A Guys Who Got Away Novel
Page 10
Luna hands me a drink, then one to Tempest too. “But you have a date with her,” Luna points out. “She won a date with you.”
Tempest clears her throat, eyebrows pinching together. “Doesn’t that mean you’re dating?”
I suppose that’s somewhat true. But not entirely. “It’s just a date. That’s all.”
Luna arches a dubious brow. “Just a date with the woman you’re always telling us about?”
I blanch, then blink. “I’m always telling you about her?”
Tempest drapes an arm around me, nodding vigorously. Always, she mouths.
Huh.
That sort of surprises me.
And sort of doesn’t too.
“Want to hear something funny?”
They both nod.
I tell them about how Teagan was jealous of Tempest’s hairbrush, thinking they’ll get a kick out of the story.
And they do.
Oh hell, do they ever.
They’re both howling with laughter.
So hard that I realize it’s partly at me—because I pretty much unwittingly admitted that Teagan spent the night. And they seem to be laughing both at the story and at what they think it means that I’m telling them.
“As I said, you’re always talking about her,” Luna signs.
“Good luck with your just a date,” Tempest adds, injecting sarcasm into her fingers.
It’s something sisters are particularly good at.
11
Teagan
This is what going back to friendship looks like after a night of toe-curling, bone-rattling sex.
It looks like text messages to plan our charity auction smile-for-the-camera date.
As I exit the subway by The Dating Pool offices on the way to work later that week, my phone buzzes.
I wish I didn’t feel a little flip in my belly when I see Ransom’s name.
But I do feel it, that same zing and zip that raced through me the other morning at his place. The wish for more. A more that won’t happen, so I slip into my good-time-gal persona, the one I live in nearly every second, and I read his note.
* * *
Ransom: Since a carriage ride is out, I think we should try metal-detecting on the Jersey shore for our big date.
* * *
Teagan: Yes, that’s what I paid top dollar for. Let’s hunt for pennies and tin.
* * *
Ransom: Fine, we’ll eat Mentos and pour Diet Coke in our mouths and be human fountains. And we will do it in Times Square.
* * *
Teagan: Wow. Have you been reading my diary? Just dying to do a mouth fountain. You really know how to show a girl a good time.
* * *
Ransom: Ahem. I believe you had a good time.
* * *
Teagan: Correction. I had three good times.
* * *
Ransom: *thumps chest*
* * *
Teagan: As you should. Back to dates though, we could go rope climbing.
* * *
Ransom: We could do other things with ropes . . .
* * *
Teagan: Gee, it feels like your brain is descending into dirty territory.
* * *
Ransom: Admittedly, it spends a lot of time there. But I’ll behave. I say we go to the planetarium, watch a sunset, drink milkshakes, or go to the Museum of Natural History.
* * *
Teagan: That. All of that. It sounds perfect.
* * *
Ransom: Whoa. You have a big date appetite.
* * *
Teagan: Don’t be making fun of my appetite. You just dangled a ton of good stuff in front of me. I’m going to eat it all.
* * *
Ransom: That’s what she said.
* * *
Teagan: *groans*
* * *
Ransom: You kind of walked into it.
* * *
Teagan: And now I must walk into work. After I pop into a bakery and get treats for the editors. It’s snack time.
* * *
Ransom: Don’t forget, they like popcorn too. Just saying.
* * *
I laugh at the way he busts me once more for my attempted Sunday morning exodus.
* * *
Teagan: They love it.
When I head into The Dating Pool offices, I swing my gaze to Bryn’s once-upon-a-time office. She left The Dating Pool more than a year ago, but I still miss her sometimes. Working with your best friend can be terrible or wonderful. With Bryn, it was a blast, and I long for the hallway run-ins and impromptu ladies’ room conferences we used to have.
Fortunately, I love the editors and writers who are still here, so when it’s time for the weekly meeting, I bring in the supplies.
“Snack time at the zoo,” I declare as I set a plate of cookies on the conference table, right next to a red bowl of popcorn with Please, sir, I want some more printed on the inside bottom of the bowl—a gift for me from Bryn when she left.
A little piece of her at the editorial meetings.
“Thank God. I’m ravenous,” says Matthew, the site’s main editor, as he grabs a cookie and feasts on it. Matthew took over the content when Bryn left.
The others devour the treats as we discuss articles, posts, and columns for the site.
Rosario wiggles her hand. “I have a hella hot idea. There’s an article, or a series, really, that I’ve been dying to do.”
“Tell us what’s on your mind,” Matthew says, tapping on his iPad, taking notes.
“We should do a piece on married couples. Dates to keep the spark alive. That’s one of our most searched for terms—fun dates for married couples.”
My social media ears prick. “I love that. It’s very shareable and very photographable too. Which is important.”
“But we would need a married writer to do it,” Matthew points out, screwing up his lips like he’s deep in thought. “We’d need to farm it out, since none of us are hitched yet.”
A buzzer beeps in my head. I know who would be perfect. “What about Summer and Oliver Harris? She’s a friend of mine, and she and her husband are always trying to go on fun dates. She submitted a letter a couple of years ago for a contest on letters to your ex, so I don’t know if that’s an issue or a conflict of interest.”
“I remember that letter. It was fantastic.” Matthew taps away on his laptop, humming, then exhaling. “We never ran her piece, since there were some issues with her engagement at the time, but now that she’s actually married to him after all—yay, happy endings—it wouldn’t be a problem. Would she do it? She was a captivating writer.”
“I’ll send her a text right now.” I grab my phone and fire off a message to Summer.
A minute later, her yes arrives.
“She’s in,” I say with a smile.
Matthew pumps a fist. Rosario holds up a hand for high-fiving. The others cheer.
“Way to go, woman!” Matthew says, and then wags a finger at me. “Now, admit it. You have a whole contact list of friends you can call on for nearly every sitch, right?”
“I do indeed,” I say with a wink.
And that’s how I want my life.
Busy with buddies. This weekend I’m going to Fitz’s wedding with Bryn and Logan. Then I’ll check out dinosaurs with Ransom for our official date. Maybe during the week, I’ll go for a run with Summer.
Good times, good people, and a good life.
The life I carved out for myself after my father died. One I’ve worked hard to maintain and won’t jeopardize.
Except, when I go home that night, I’m a little lonelier than I was before. I click open my text app, contemplating sending Ransom a text, since I desperately want to chat with him.
To trade more silly date ideas.
To send goofy gifs.
Or to just . . . talk.
Like we did on the way to the auction. Or in bed Saturday night. Or on Sunday morning too, when he saw through me to what made me tick.
It’s for City Post’s hottest athletes.
That’s interesting. Looks like this list was posted right after the auction.
I click on the piece, and I grin—Ransom’s at the top, followed by Adrian, followed by the Yankees shortstop. There’s an asterisk at the bottom lamenting Fitz’s absence from the list.
*After several years owning these lists, James Fitzgerald is no longer eligible on account of his pending marriage to Dean Collins this weekend. Fitz, we wish you and your husband-to-be all the best for a long and happy life together, and we thank you for all the times you did qualify for our hottest single athletes in the city.
Naturally, I screenshot that and send it to Fitz.
* * *
Teagan: I guess all good things come to an end.
* * *
Fitz: It is indeed the end of an era. And I am all good with that.
* * *
Teagan: As you should be. Quite a run while it lasted though, King of the Hotties. Former King, I mean.
* * *
Fitz: I humbly surrender my crown to the next crop of single AF jocks.
* * *
Teagan: And there are plenty of them! See you this weekend. I hear the cake is going to be dope. As well as the grooms.
* * *
Fitz: So dope that you should dance with the forward from my team. And on that note, I’m outta here!
* * *
Teagan: Good night, Cupid Groom.
* * *
I return to the thread with Ransom because I know he’ll want to see this, then maybe we’ll have some friendly banter over it, but that’s all it will be. I’m not texting him just to text him, like a girlfriend would do. It’s exactly the same as I just texted Fitz.
* * *
Teagan: Look who’s on top!
* * *
Ransom: Those damn lists.
* * *
I stare at his response quizzically. It’s not quite as exuberant as I’d have thought.
* * *
Teagan: You’re probably tired of those. A dime a dozen.
* * *
Ransom: That’s not it . . .
* * *
My phone rings, and it’s the man of the hour. “Hey,” he says.
“Hi. You okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just exhales. “So, the thing is . . .”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, concerned.
“Nothing. I swear it’s nothing.” He sighs. “How are you?”
It’s not nothing. It’s definitely something. “You’re changing the subject. Are you sure it’s nothing?”
He seems to wave it off, dismiss it, with “It’s stupid.”
My brow knits. “Is it though? It sounds like you’re bothered. Did I touch a nerve when I sent you that list?” I ask, a little worried, since something is clearly eating at him.
“Okay, here goes. When I first started dating Edie, I was on a couple of those lists of athletes.” He sounds sheepish at first, like he’s embarrassed, but it’s a cute sort of embarrassment. “Until the media figured out I wasn’t available, and then I wasn’t on them anymore.” He sounds more serious than I’m used to hearing him. “But she didn’t like that I had been on them.”
I sit up straighter, listening intently. “Was she worried she’d lose you? Is that why she didn’t want to see you on the single-in-the-city lists?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” he says heavily, like this is a painful admission. Like it costs him something to have this conversation. But he hasn’t shut it down, so maybe it’s a price he wants to pay.
“I take it that wasn’t the reason she disliked them?”
“She had a different one.”
“Do you want to tell me?” I ask gently. It sounds like he does, but he’s still holding back for some reason.
“Yeah. I do.” He draws a breath, and it sounds like it fuels him to continue. “See, when I first started out in the pros, the guys and me, we did the whole smack-talk thing. Which we still do, but that’s when it started. We were always competing any way we could,” he says, with the once-upon-a-time note of settling in to tell a story.
“Martinez and I were in different sports, but we ripped on each other about who was first in our respective drafts, who had better stats, who got on those lists and where we placed, and so on. That might sound dumb, but that’s what we did. We still do. That’s our currency. Hell, I do that with Fitz.”
“Smack talk,” I say, nodding, understanding him. “I get that.”
“You do?” He sounds wildly relieved.
“I do. It’s sort of like jokes. It’s how you communicate. Your insults, your put-downs—they aren’t truly insults. It’s because you like each other. The gibes show you care, and that you’re part of the group, right?”
The longest exhale of tension comes from the other end of the phone line. “Yes. That. Exactly.”
“And she didn’t like you smack-talking each other?”
“She hated it. Couldn’t stand it. She despised that I texted them. That we found things to give each other a hard time about.”
I laugh, a little incredulous. “Basically, she hated the things that made you, you.”
He chuckles lightly, then returns to his more introspective side. “In a way, I suppose she did. She didn’t entirely get it. Or get it at all.” He takes a beat, then marches forward, and I wish I could see his face, but I imagine his hazel eyes are resolute, confident. “And you know what? I actually liked being on the lists again when we split. I liked it for a bunch of reasons.”
“Tell me why.” I want to know, and he sure seems eager to share. Maybe he’s even pacing around his place now, energized.
“Because it meant I was single and wasn’t being lied to anymore about how she felt. I was free from someone who didn’t feel the same way I did. But most of all, because it meant I could do those things I’d missed—talk to my buddies in the way we liked to talk, hang with them—and I didn’t have to worry about what she thought.”
His answer makes perfect sense. And it reveals another layer to him, one I find fascinating. Men and women can present such simple fronts to the world, but behind those are so many more sides than we expect.
That’s what I’ve learned about Ransom every time we’ve talked recently. I’ve seen his family side, his giving heart, his wounded soul, and now the guy who likes to hang with his buds—because they matter to him. Even if it seems like all they do is engage in bro banter, it’s bro banter with a purpose.
And that’s all kinds of cool in my book.
“Sometimes a joke is just a joke, but sometimes it’s a connection to a friend,” I say.
“Yes! God, yes,” he says, punctuating his relief with a laugh.
“And whoever you’re with should understand that your relationships with them are important to you. We shouldn’t try to dictate every single behavior. We have to give the people we care about space to be themselves.”
I can sense his smile as he speaks. “You get it, T. You get me.”
“I try,” I say, my heart glowing in my chest.
“You do more than try, Teagan,” he says, then swings back to the topic. “And I still like being on the lists, but not because I care about something arbitrary like looks or a hotness meter. Whatever. I can’t control that, and it truly makes no difference in my daily life. But it’s this thing the guys and me bond over, even if we’re insulting each other.”
“Because they aren’t truly put-downs,” I say, a wide smile spreading across my face as he shares this glimpse of his soft, vulnerable underbelly. Who would have thought it’d be lined in insults? Yet it is.
“Don’t get me wrong. Martinez is an ugly son of a bitch.”
I crack up. “And all straight women in New York would disagree.”
He growls. “Don’t say that.”
“I speak the
truth.” A grin spreads across my face when I add, “But I happen to think a certain hockey player is much sexier.”
He hums, low and sexy. “Best. Response. Ever.”
“But I get that you’d want to rib him about being number one on a single-in-the-city list.”
“You definitely don’t think it’s weird?”
I shake my head, still grinning as I snuggle deeper into the couch. “No. I think it’s cool.”
He lets out another contented sigh. “I have a brilliant idea, Teagan.”
“I love brilliant ideas. Lay it on me.”
“Do you want to hang at Fitz’s wedding this weekend?”
“Obviously,” I say, and I bet he means as friends, but the invitation feels a little bit like a date too.
Or maybe it feels a lot like one.
And I like it.