“You—”
“Yes, I remember. At least most of it—parts of the night keep flashing through my mind like a slide show. I just can’t remember how it ended,” she whispers, her bloodshot eyes fearful, and I couldn’t decide if her panic stemmed from not remembering if she had cheated on Ben, or if she was scared I’d be the one to tell him if she did.
“It ended with Liam smashing his fist into that guy’s nose and shoving your drunk ass into a taxi.”
“What?” Jules sits up quickly and then grabs her head in pain, leaning back slowly and taking a deep breath before continuing. “Liam? No way. I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” I say as I fill in all the blanks of the night for her, including Nikki’s appearance, her face darkening when I mention how the guy she was sitting with grabbed my arm.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice small. “Did I ruin your night? I really wanted you to have a great night.”
“Hey, stop. I had a great time. I’m okay. The question is, are you?”
“I don’t know,” she says, her sadness penetrating the air between us, neither of us knowing the magic words to make it dissolve.
“What’s going on with Ben? Or I should say, what’s not going on with Ben?”
Jules squeezes her eyes shut as she tries to locate the right words. “I guess I just thought, when you gave me my makeover, that Ben would go nuts. That he was going to see me as hot again.”
“You were hot before this!” I interject. “And Ben has always told you how beautiful you are. I’ve heard him.”
“I know he still thinks I’m attractive. But we’ve been in such a rut. He’s traveling more than ever, and when he is home, we’re so busy with the kids that we can’t even connect. I think I just want him to throw me up against a wall like he used to—when he was so into me that he couldn’t control himself. And when you gave me a firmer stomach and killer haircut and he barely even glanced my way, I think something snapped inside of me,” she says as the tears begin to fall down her face like a waterfall.
“What happened? Did he cheat on you?” I question, sitting up despite the pounding in my head, imagining what I’ll say to him when I see him—how dare he hurt my best friend!
She shakes her head and I breathe a sigh of relief. They were still okay.
“I started to question things—to come apart on the inside.” She takes a long pause before continuing. “But he isn’t the one who’s making the mistakes, Kate. It’s me.”
“But nothing happened last night, Jules. We stopped it before anything could—”
“You’re right,” she interrupts. “I didn’t actually cross the line. But I wanted to. And not just last night.” She shakes her head.
“I don’t understand,” I say gently, even though I think I’m starting to, the pieces of the puzzle clicking together in my mind.
“Something happened with my boss recently. The guy you saw at the restaurant yesterday.”
I remember how the energy shifted as he breezed through the kitchen, that I could feel a tension in the air as he’d sampled the fudge—an awkwardness between them I couldn’t figure out. I swallow my breath and, as I wait for her to tell me the story, squeeze her hand to let her know that whatever she’s about to reveal, I will understand. Slowly, she tells me that after a particularly stressful night at the restaurant, her boss, Tim, had grabbed a bottle of the restaurant’s best single-malt scotch from behind the bar and offered her a deep pour. They were both distraught that the L.A. Times food critic had dined there earlier, and their server had tripped and spilled an entire glass of wine all over his crisp white shirt and Burberry tie, causing him to leave abruptly. Three glasses of scotch later, they had gone from being incredibly depressed and wondering if the restaurant could survive a bad review, to laughing about the look on his face as the waiter frantically attempted to wipe the reviewer’s crotch with his napkin. Another half glass later, he’d tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, whispering how much he liked her new look as he’d leaned in so closely that she could see a light speckle of tan freckles dotting his skin that she’d never noticed before. Just as their lips began to come together, the executive chef had banged on the back door, in search of the cell phone he’d left behind. They had broken away from each other quickly, Jules grabbing her bag off the counter and rushing out the door into the cold wind without saying good-bye, shaking at what might have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted—perplexed that she had felt both excited and sickened at the same time.