“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. “I’m a freaking saint.”
Her hand came down on mine, stopping me as I reached for the bag of coffee. I swallowed as her engagement ring, still on her finger, winked back at me in the dim kitchen light. “Liam,” she said, her voice suddenly quieter. Gone was the bouncing, bubbly girl who had opened the door.
I slowly dragged my gaze up to meet hers, dreading what I might see. Thankfully, she still wasn’t crying. But her full, sweet lips were curved into a lush pout. And her eyes, bright and blue, were glossy with emotion. “My fiancé has been fucking a hippie for almost our entire relationship.”
“I, uh… I heard.”
Silence.
Wow, I sucked at this whole comforting thing. No wonder I didn’t have too many friends. Well, that and I worked all the damn time. Waking up at three in the morning, six days a week, didn’t exactly lay the foundation for a great social life.
“I’m sorry?” I tried again.
“Was that a question?”
Shit. “Chloe,” I said, setting my coffee down and taking her hand. “I’m sorry. Dan’s an asshole and an idiot. Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to call any of your girlfriends to come over?”
“I already called them,” she said. “They’re all either working or out of town.” She gave a shrug that suggested nonchalance, but her eyes revealed quite the opposite.
“Really?” I asked. “Even your best friend… what was her name? Tanja.” Granted, in the few times I’d met her friend Tanja, she seemed like a train wreck. Maybe it was better she wasn’t here tonight.
“You know what you could do for me, Liam?”
“Tell me.”
She caught her full bottom lip between her teeth. Slowly, she leaned into me, brushing her mouth against my ear, and whispered, “You can loosen up and have a fucking margarita.”
8:05 p.m.
“Holy crap, how much tequila did you put in this pitcher?”
“Apparently, enough that I can see your vagina.” She snorted a laugh and fell over onto her side on the recliner chair, cracking herself up.
Still, laughing was better than crying.
“Did you just call me a pussy?” I chuckled.
She hiccupped, paused, and raised her fist to cover her mouth. Oh, fuck. Puking, on the other hand, was decidedly not better than crying. I nudged the glass of water closer to her, and for the first time since I arrived, she drank half of it without protest.
Then, slamming the nearly empty glass back on the table, she pointed at me. “No, I called you a vagina. Pussies are sexy and shouldn’t be used derogatively.”
I paused, thinking and taking another sip of my incredibly strong tequila. “So, vagina is okay to use derogatively? Also… I’m pretty sure you just said I wasn’t sexy.” I placed a hand over my heart and cringed an exaggerated expression. “Ouch, Chloe. That hurts.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed her margarita once more. “Oh, please. You know you’re sexy. I don’t make out with non-sexy people.”
I froze, the straw halfway to my mouth. We never spoke of that kiss after it happened. But more importantly, did Chloe Dyker just say she thought I was sexy? “We haven’t made out since we were sixteen. And even then, it was only once.”
Chloe was on her feet, stumbling across the living room, and she fell in a clumsy heap beside me on the couch. “Yeah, it was only once because you never called me!”
“Sure, I did.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I called you dozens of times for months after that… and hung up as soon as you answered.”
Tucking her feet beneath her, she nuzzled into the crook of my arm and sighed. “Why would you do that?”
“Because…” I gulped, glancing down at her blonde hair fanned out across my black t-shirt. How drunk was she? Would she remember any of our conversation in the morning? “Because, Chloe Dyker, you’re intimidating as hell. You were at sixteen and you are now at twenty-six.” Not to mention, I was one of dozens of guys in high school who had a crush on her. It wasn’t long after our make out session that I saw her kissing some other guy at a different party.
She smirked and her body jerked with a silent chuckle. “You said my whole name. It feels like I’m celebrity or something. Like Brad Pitt. Or Nick Jonas.”
“In high school, you were kind of a celebrity.”
She snorted a laugh. The sort of laugh that was so real and true that she couldn’t even contain it enough to make it sound cute. Or… maybe she was just that drunk. “I like it. It’s bullshit, but I still like it.”
She adjusted, angling her body up to look at me and as she did, she stuck her pointer finger into my chin dimple. “You know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“I think we’re going to be best friends.”
“Is that so?”
Pressing her lips together, she nodded, and I couldn’t contain my smile as I looked down at her. In that moment, I really hoped she was right. But somehow, I doubted it. By the time the sun came up tomorrow, she’d forget all about the empty promises of tequila.
“You know what I think?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“I think you should drink more water.”
9:15 p.m.
“I don’t get this movie!” I shouted, gesturing at Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal and their weird 80s hair. “Seriously, no one in their right mind would fake an orgasm in the middle of a very busy New York deli. It’s ridiculous.”
“I would,” Chloe said.
“I know you would. I said no one in their right mind.”
“Hey!” she spun and smacked me on the abs, only her hand stayed right there, palm pressed against the ridges of my stomach and her eyes went wide, hungry. “Oh.”
I quirked a brow at her, which she pointedly ignored and began moving
