“Hey,” she said back, looking at something on the screen of her phone. “Do you think we’re going to do seven or ten days in Mexico over the holidays?” she asked, still plugging away mercilessly.
Every year since I’d known her, we’d survived the holidays together, kind of like a team. It was hard on me with Henry not being there, and she didn’t have much in the way of family. So, on Boxing Day, we’d pack up and disappear somewhere hot until the New Year rolled in. Kevin occasionally joined us when he wasn’t shacked up some gorgeous man, and we never complained about the additional company.
In short, Kevin was a riot.
“Um. I’m not sure,” I answered, sliding into the seat. “It’ll depend on the event schedule.”
Smith & Co Productions was always busy around the holidays with work parties and other themed events. That being said, it was only the end of October, and I didn’t know where we’d be in terms of scheduling for the end of December.
Hence why we usually booked last minute. That, and the deals didn’t hurt our credit cards either.
“Morgan wants to know.” She smiled at the screen.
I buckled up, setting my purse between my legs. “Oh.” I laughed. “He can’t come. Girls trip.”
“I know. I know.” She looked up at me and stopped dead. “Char, are you okay?” Leighton leaned over the console of her car and tilted my chin up to face her.
I guess I hadn’t done a good enough job.
Her green eyes inspected me.
I shook my head in her hands and my bottom lip trembled. “Dean was outside when I got home.”
“Jesus.” She winced. “What did he say?”
“Nothing really.” She dropped her hand and I ran my fingers through my hair. “He said we needed to talk, and then…”
“And then what?”
It pained me to think it, but to say it out loud was a special kind of hell. “His daughter showed up.”
“What?!” she screeched, and the shrill sound of it ricocheted inside the car.
“She looks like she’s ten.” I rested my forehead on her dash.
Leighton wasn’t stupid; she did the math in her head. “But that means…”
“Yeah.”
“Did he say anything?” She sounded as shocked as I felt.
“No.” I shook my head against the dash. “I ran inside.”
“Jesus,” Leighton repeated. “You need a drink.”
She said it, even though she knew I had a self-imposed limit of three.
I never got drunk, ever.
But three sometimes felt good, really good.
“You haven’t even heard about my date last night.” I laughed into the dash.
Turning on her blinker, she pulled me upright by the back of my coat. “What happened last night?”
“Maverick ripped the door off the bathroom stall while I was about to go pee.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“We were evacuated from the show due to gunshots.”
She made a startled sound in the back of her throat.
“Turned out to be unrelated gang activity.”
Leighton rolled her eyes. “‘Cause that makes this story way less insane.”
“Beau kissed me.”
She clapped her hands.
“And this morning, he sent the cast of the Dirty Dancing show to perform the finale in my office, because we missed it.” I shook my head. “‘Cause of the gunshots and all.”
Her mouth hung open again. “No shit.”
“Definitely shit.” I put my head back down on her dash. “And then Dean.”
“And then Dean,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” I said.
Leighton drove, and I filled her in with more detail on the events of last night, and today, and tonight, as she did.
By the time we arrived, I was overwhelmed and it showed.
My flight instincts were still on high alert and my response was to emotionally shut down.
I was fading, fast.
We were sat at a small table in the back of Chill Winston.
“I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay.” Leighton told the waitress. “Whatever’s good.”
The redhead nodded and turned to me, but Leighton spoke on my behalf. “She’ll have a whiskey, neat.”
The waitress left and Leighton leaned her petite forearms onto the table. “I think you better tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.” She tilted her head to the side and pulled her perfect eyebrows together. “And I don’t mean the dates and dancing office parties. I mean what’s going on upstairs. You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”
I felt that way too.
I stared at her—or, well, through her. “I’m lost.”
“What do you mean?” She was concerned. It was all over her delicate features.
“I’m a lost woman,” I told her, not entirely sure I knew what I meant by it, but just knowing that was the only way I knew how to describe what I felt.
I’d been content for years with the guarded way I lived my life, but now I, for lack of a better word, I wasn’t.
“It’s not just Dean.” I shook my head. “It’s all of it. It’s Beau. It’s Maverick. It’s Henry. It’s me.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my hands.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.” A tear slid down my cheek.
“Do what, Char?”
I pressed my eyes tightly closed. “I don’t want to be in this much pain anymore.”
My best friend slid out from her side of the booth and into my side, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.