“Oh my gosh.” Charlie snapped her head around, her eyes growing wide. “What? When?”
“Night before last. I’m sorry. I know I should be comforting you, but I’m really horrible at it. You shared. I’m sharing. That’s all I have to share.” She hadn’t talked to him since, which was perfectly normal and something she was trying not to freak out over. She refused to be the clingy girl. That wasn’t her. She wasn’t in the same zip code as clingy.
“What do you mean by almost?” A smile burst onto Charlie’s face and it was like seeing the sun come out from behind gray clouds. That was more like it. The honey-blonde in the patterned yellow dress looked much more herself when wearing a wide smile.
Gloria raised an eyebrow. “I’m assuming you know what I mean by almost.”
Charlie grinned. Yeah, she knew.
“Why do you look happy?”
“You have to tell me something.” Charlie leaned forward and put her hands into prayer pose. “I beg of you.”
Gloria sighed. She supposed she did owe her some details.
“We went swimming. Sort of. I mean, we started out in our underwear and then it turned into skinny-dipping. Then we were making out, and then…other things.” Unbelievably, Gloria felt her face go warm. “But I didn’t go all the way. And I won’t either. I’m not giving in to him.”
Again. Even though she felt like she already had.
“That’s awesome. I think. Oh my gosh!” Charlie was still grinning. Which was unnerving.
“What are you two carrying on about?” Faith walked barefoot from sand to grass to the porch, Sofie on her heels.
“Yeah,” Sofie said, sandals looped in her fingers. “What happened? Charlie looks like she just heard a huge secret.”
“I didn’t.” Charlie drank her wine, but the guilt in her eyes gave her away.
Faith pointed at her. “Lies!”
Sofie scuttled to the nearest chair at the table and sat, her chin in her hands. Faith sat, too, but she craned one eyebrow expectantly while Charlie kept her wineglass tilted to her lips. Every pair of eyes was on Gloria.
Damn. It.
“Fine,” Gloria said. “Asher and I—”
“Yay!” Sofie exclaimed.
“Did not sleep together last night.”
“Sorry. I’m ’shipping.” Sofie pressed her fingers to her lips, but behind them she was still smiling.
“But they almost did it,” Charlie pulled away her wineglass to interject.
“Oh, you’re close, then.” Sofie angled a glance at Faith, who was frowning, then back at Gloria. “Wait. This is a good thing, right? Or no? I’m so confused.”
“Glo?” Charlie asked, abandoning her wine.
“I managed to get away from him before we went too far.” Gloria didn’t have to look over. She could feel Faith’s penetrative gaze boring a hole into her head.
“I don’t see any reason why you should stay away from him,” Charlie said.
“Besides the fact that he sleeps with every female who approaches him, including the one he cheated on Gloria with?” Faith crossed her arms. “I get it. He’s a beautiful, famous man. And you have a past, but—”
“But this is also your past talking,” Sofie said. “Asher didn’t cheat. He didn’t sleep with Jordan…I mean, not after he was with Gloria.”
“Yeah, he didn’t cheat,” Charlie agreed.
Both of them had known the truth for so long. Gloria had really stayed in denial, hadn’t she?
“But he did have a child with Jordan,” Faith argued, crossing her slender arms over her small breasts.
That was a fact. An undeniable one.
“I married a guy with a child from another woman,” Charlie said.
“That’s totally different,” Faith said.
“It is, but it doesn’t mean things can’t work out between—” Sofie started.
“Asher and I are not fucking!” Gloria shouted.
Her friends blinked at her like stunned owls.
“Sorry.” She lowered her voice. “We had some fun, that was it. And Sofie and Charlie are right about Jordan,” Glo said as an aside to Faith. “He didn’t cheat. She told me herself, and trust me there is a lot of love lost between us, so if she could have lied to her benefit, she would have.” But Jordan had twisted it to her benefit. She’d brought up Hawk to remind Gloria she had something Gloria didn’t: a lifelong tie to Asher.
Everyone fell quiet, a gull cried in the distance, and water lapped the shore.
“I’m just going to see him when I see him,” she continued. “And our seeing each other will not involve nine inches of Asher’s finest asset as long as I have anything to say about it.”
“So close,” Charlie whispered with a headshake.
“Jordan really told you she didn’t sleep with him that night?” Sofie asked.
“Yeah.” Gloria reached for her drink, surprised to see her hand shaking from her mini-outburst. She drank down the remainder of wine in her glass.
“Nine inches,” Faith said, her eyes glazing the slightest bit, sending all of them—even a reluctant and sexually frustrated Gloria—into giggles.
“So where are your guys tonight?” Gloria asked, desperately in need of a subject change.
“With yours,” Charlie answered.