He smiles. “She did?”
“No, dipshit. She bit my head off like she always does.”
He wilts. “Now what?”
I jut my chin toward Bianca, who offers Nick a sweet, coy smile. “Now you talk to her anyway. You don’t need Kate’s blessing.”
“I need my nuts intact.”
“Your nuts will live. Kate will probably warn Bianca you’re like me and try to dissuade her, but you can’t do anything about that. Focus on what you can do—prove her wrong.”
Nick smiles at Bianca and sighs. “She’s perfect.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve talked across a board game for thirty minutes.”
“It’s a soulmate connection,” he says defensively. “Not that you’d know anything about that.”
For some odd reason, that stings. I know it’s unfair to expect Nick to understand my motives for my one-and-done policy, when I haven’t told him the real reason I refuse to date or have a relationship, but it still leaves a hollow ache in my chest, to hear what he thinks of me.
“What have you done,” he prods, “that Kate’s so against her cousin talking to an acquaintance of yours?”
“So we’re acquaintances now, are we?”
“You gotta fix this for me,” he begs. “I’m a man possessed—‘I burn, I pine, I perish’!”
I stare at him. “You have to stop reading so much poetry.”
“It’s not poetry, it’s—”
“Shamelessly overromanticizing half an hour spent with a woman you can’t possibly already have feelings for?”
“I know you don’t understand, but, please”—he steps closer, looking desperate, making my resolve crumble—“please just try to smooth things over? Bianca’s a grown woman who can make her own choices. I know that . . .” He glances over his shoulder, to where Kate, now dressed in a snug dark green T-shirt, is hiss-whispering something at Bianca, who glances our way, looking wary. “I just need a little help.”
“I’m not so sure you do.”
Bianca walks our way and stops beside Nick, smiling up at him. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says. “Do you think . . .” She clears her throat and takes a step closer. “Do you think maybe we could talk a bit? Out on the balcony?”
Nick smiles. “I’d love nothing more.”
I feel Kate’s stare before our eyes meet from across the table where she stands. I’m trying so hard not to remember what she looked like with her shirt off—long back, smooth skin, wisps of auburn kissing her shoulders—to revisit that filthy fantasy that tore through my mind.
Resentment knots my gut. I don’t want one more thing about Kate stitched into my memory, tugging at my thoughts when she’s gone again.
Forcing my gaze away from her, I rejoin the crowd, which has abandoned Sequence for snacks and another round of Margo’s cocktails in the kitchen.
Soon enough, I’m introduced to Sarah, who seems to have showed up while Kate and I were torturing each other with our wardrobe changes. A coworker of Jamie’s, she’s not a pediatrician like him but a general physician with whom he volunteers at local shelters in the city, providing medical care for folks in need.
She’s smart and pretty, a bright-eyed fast talker with gorgeous, full curves and a confident smile. Any other night, I’d know exactly where we were headed—straight to bed, until my body was spent, my mind finally quiet, and she was blissed-out with orgasms, too exhausted for more. Then I’d get dressed while she slept and write the same note I always do—brief, sincere, and very intentionally without any contact information.
But not now.
Now, as we make small talk, I have to force myself to focus on what Sarah’s said. I have to count seconds until it’s been five minutes before I let myself glance around, only to see no sign of Kate in the small crowd of people. I make myself pay attention to the woman in front of me. I don’t wonder where Kate’s gone or second-guess if I’ve done the best thing in walking away from her.
I don’t worry that I’m getting much too attached to knowing I can search this crowd and find the feisty, messy-haired woman who’s already woven herself deep into its fabric.
? NINE ?
Kate
From my shadowy corner of the hallway, I can see a woman beside Christopher in the kitchen, where they’ve been the past half hour. She smiles as he talks, looking like she’s got cartoon hearts for eyes. I have no idea what she sees in him. When I look at Christopher, my brain doodles little devil horns on that annoyingly, perfectly tousled dark hair, a forked tail pinned on that high, round—
I scrunch my eyes shut, mentally kicking myself. What the hell is wrong with me, looking at his butt, noticing the way it stretches his slacks and flexes when he shifts his weight?
When I open my eyes, even while keeping them decidedly not on his butt, I remember the sight of his bare chest as he yanked off his shirt in the hallway, broad and solid, fine dark hairs dusting golden skin, arrowing straight down his stomach to—
“There you are.” Bea leans on the wall beside me and gives me a concerned once-over. “You okay?”
“Barf,” I grumble, glaring at Christopher.
She snorts a laugh. “I’m assuming this is about seeing Jamie’s coworker hit on Christopher and not a case of the spins.”
“Affirmative.”
“If you stick around much longer, you’re going to have to get used to it,” she says. “You do realize pretty much everyone besides you, me, and Jules wants in his pants, right?”
“More like we’re the only people who haven’t been in his pants,” I mutter into my cocktail glass. Margo’s mixology genius is the only thing getting me through this night.
“Not that we’re going to shame someone for who and how many people they’ve slept with,” Bea says pointedly.
I roll my eyes. “Of course I’m not shaming him for that. It’s the hearts he’s messed up along the way.”
Bea stares at me, looking curious. “Why would you assume that he’s messed up anyone’s heart?”
“Because that’s what players do, and he is the definition of a player.”
“We gotta go.” Sula stops near us, fishing around the coat hooks, Margo right behind her. “Rowan’s going to wake up soon, screaming for Margo’s boobs.”
“The joys of nursing a toddler,” Margo says.
Sula helps her shrug on her coat and adds, “Who’s cutting teeth.”
Bea and I both reflexively cover our chests.
“Yeah, it’s as fun as it sounds.” Margo hugs Bea hard, then hugs me, too, careful of my arm in its sling. I’m getting so damn tired of this sling act. I want to hug with two arms. Play Sequence with both hands. Clasp Christopher’s jaw, wrench his attention my way, and find some way to wipe that arrogant smirk right off his face.
“Night, kids!” Sula calls, blowing everyone a kiss.
“Oof,” Bea says, watching them go. “Teeth and nursing. That sounds scary.”
I watch the door shut behind Margo and Sula, then turn to see Bea gulping a glass of water. I should do the same, but I’m a little too attached to the numbing buzz of alcohol in my system right now. “The things parents deal with,” I tell her. “Makes you even more sure you never want kids, right?”
Bea coughs into her water. Bringing away her glass, she wipes her chin. “Did I say that? Long ago?”
“Like the last time I saw you.”
“Which was a year and a half ago.”
“Touché.” I sigh into my cocktail glass before I tip it back and drain it. Turning, I face Bea fully and land against the hallway wall with a clumsy thud. “So you want kids now? What happened to your grand plans to travel Europe with me and be a famous painter?”
She bites her lip, staring into her empty glass. “They . . . grew. I still want to travel with you again. I want to refocus on my painting career. But that doesn’t mean I can’t want kids, too.”