by Linda Kage
Well, that sucked.
All the joy and elation I’d felt in the bathroom began to ebb. Then the fresh memory of catching my boyfriend—oh right, ex-boyfriend—screwing one of his coworkers doggie style on my kitchen table half an hour ago obliterated all my happy thoughts completely.
My shoulders slumped, depression crept in, and my chest went tight as my throat dried up like I was about to—
Crap! I was going to cry.
No, I absolutely, unequivocally refused to cry over this.
Oh God, I needed reinforcements before I turned into a freaking watering pot.
I had friends. I should call one of them. But when I dug my phone out of my purse, I realized the battery had died...and my phone charger was still at my former residence where I had lived up until half an hour ago with my ex-boyfriend, and I was only returning there after hell froze over. Twice.
I blew out a long breath, forcing my body to relax.
I could do this. I could handle whatever happened next. My life had been at worse places than this, and I’d survived then. I could surely survive this little hiccup.
Somewhat revitalized by my mini-pep-thought, I put the car into gear and drove to the first house that sprang to mind.
It was located in a nice, peaceful, modest neighborhood. The branches of the trees lining the street swayed lightly in the autumn breeze, making me miss my childhood woods.
But I hadn’t entered them in six years, and I knew if I ever did, the memories would no doubt slay me. So I tore my attention from the flaming red maples, pushed from my car, and made my way up the front walk until I was on a covered porch and ringing a doorbell.
The ten-year old who answered immediately yelled, “Zombie attack,” when he saw me. Then he ran off, screaming.
On any other day, I would’ve chased after him, croaking “Brains,” with my arms outstretched and my head canted to the side, but today, I just couldn’t get with the program.
So I stood there, by myself, in the opened front door, pathetic and a little mangled, if not completely broken.
“Colton, who’s at the—” A brunette popped her head into the living room to see me still hanging out in the entrance. “Oh! Felicity. Hi, come on in. What’s up?”
I took a deep breath and stepped into the house. “Hey, Aspen.” I gave her a friendly wave and then a forced smile as I closed the door behind me. “You have any time for some girl talk?”
“For you? Of course. Follow me back to the kitchen. I’m trying to make homemade noodles for chicken noodle soup. The guys always go gaga whenever I make anything homemade, and I get a kick out of their exaggerated reactions, so it’s become kind of an addiction of mine to cook up new surprises for them. Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked as we entered the brightly lit room.
“Oh my God, yes.” Nothing sounded as good as alcohol right now.
“Iced tea?” she asked, making me frown.
“You mean, Long Island Iced Tea, right?” I corrected—pleaded, really—as I slumped into a chair at the table and rested my face in my hands.
She glanced back at me and lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, so this is going to be one those talks, huh?”
I sighed and closed my weary eyes. “Unfortunately yes.”
The sounds of cabinet doors opening and ice in a glass were like music to my ears. When Aspen sat across from me and slid a cup my way, I sat up and took a fortifying breath. After a long, deep drink that made my eyes water, I let out a refreshed sigh and sent Aspen my most sincere look of gratitude.
“Thank you. You’re amazing. I love you.”
She blushed and waved away my gushing praise. “Just talk. I’m dying of curiosity over here. What happened?”
“Right.” I cleared my throat and stiffened my back. “So, I walked into my apartment about an hour ago, only to interrupt Cam screwing some other girl.”
Aspen gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth. “No.”
I nodded. “Oh, yes.” Gifting her with one of my overly forced smiles, I added, “And when I confronted them, I discovered he was actually ready to dump me and have her move in...without discussing it with me first. In fact, her clothes were already hanging in my closet.” After a bitter laugh, I asked, “What a way to break it to a girl easy, huh?”
“I can’t...this is just... He seriously cheated on you?” Aspen blinked before asking, “Is he stupid or something?”
I laughed. “Bless you.” The chuckle actually felt good. I was relieved for the break in my agony. “I needed that.”
“No, really.” Aspen just kept frowning. “How could he not realize how awesome you are? How could he...and then just move on with someone else without talking to you first? Oh, wait. Is the apartment leased in your name or did you move in with him? Maybe—”
My shoulders buckled from the burden piling on them. “I moved in with him about six months ago, and he’d been living there for over a year. The lease and everything is in his name.”
“But haven’t you been paying the rent for the past—”
“Four months? Yeah. Pretty much.” Stupid, idiotic, naive me.
Aspen shook her head. “I still can’t believe he just... That bastard.”
It did my heart good, seeing her upset on my behalf, and that kind of cheered me up a little more.
“Yup.” I nodded, totally agreeing. “But the good news in all this is that I’m not pregnant like I kind of feared I was.”
“Say what?”
Leaning in toward her, I confessed, “I’m late, but I think it’s just stress or I-don’t-know because I sensed something was going on with him lately. But this is the second test I’ve taken in two days, and they’ve both been negative, so whew, huh? Dodged a bullet there.”
Aspen shook her head, gazing at me with something akin to awe, which was weird because I didn’t think I could be any more pathetic than I was in this moment.
“You amaze me,” she said. “I don’t know how you can still smile and be so upbeat at a time like this.”
The grin on my face went a little stiff as a memory assailed me.
Make me a promise, a voice from my past whispered through my head. Suddenly, I was sixteen again and he was gripping my face, begging me with desperate brown eyes. No matter what happens today, don’t ever change. You are fun and sweet and amazing just the way you are. You make the world a better place because you always find the bright side. You ARE the bright side. And if I’m ever going to make it through this, I need to know you’re out there, still glowing and making the world bright.
I wiped my hands over my face and coughed through a tickle in my throat. “Well...” I shrugged and met Aspen’s gaze before I had to look away. “You know, it wasn’t like Cam was the great love of my life.”
He certainly hadn’t been...
Knox.
I blew out a breath and sent Aspen another one of my fake smiles. Her brow crinkled with worry. “So you just stayed with him all these months, living with him and letting him mooch off you because...?”
My gaze fell as my shoulders slumped with shame. “I don’t know,” I mumbled, drawing a line through the condensation of my Long Island Iced Tea glass with my finger. “Loneliness, maybe. Something to do.” My chest went tight. “Sometimes you just go with a situation because there’s nothing better for you. So you just...”
“Settle?” Aspen guessed softly.
I frowned, guilt niggling at me. “Well, now I feel like a total bitch, like I used poor Cam just to pass the time.”
“No, I know you didn’t. I mean, you supported him while he was out of work, feeding him and housing him and paying his car payment when you could barely afford all that for yourself. And you practically got him that new job. You defended him every time Noel talked trash about him, and—”
“Well, it turns out your hubby was right. Cam was a lousy boyfriend.” I gasped and looked at her as a sudden thought struck. “Or maybe he just knew. Maybe he knew I couldn’t love him, and...and that
’s what drove him away.”
Aspen rolled her eyes. “If that were the case, then he should’ve talked to you about it, not found someone else behind your back while he was still with you. You are not to blame for what that asshole did today.”
“But—”
“Listen to me, and listen good.” Reaching across the table, Aspen grasped both of my hands in both of hers. “You did not deserve to be treated that way. And Cam was a complete idiot for not appreciating how beautiful, smart, charming, loyal, and lovely you are. If he thought your feelings for him needed to be stronger, he should’ve tried harder to win your heart over instead of turning to the first willing slut to open her legs for him. Because you are worth fighting for, damn it.”
“Wow,” I murmured, shaking my head. “If you weren’t already married, I would so turn lesbian right now to chase after you.”
Aspen snorted, then blushed for making the sound. Pulling her hands from mine, she covered her mouth with them and laughed outright. “Well...thank you.”
I smiled because she was so freaking adorable. “Have I told you how glad I am that Noel introduced us?”
She dropped her hands from her rosy cheeks and smiled back. “So am I.”
Remembering the first few weeks I’d known Noel Gamble, I shook my head. “At first, I thought he was a creepy cheater who didn’t even bother to hide his wedding ring because every time he saw me reading on my break, he became overly interested, asking me all kinds of oddball questions about whatever story I was on.”
Aspen let out a delighted smile. “The first day he met you, he came home that night and told me about the new waitress working at Forbidden. ‘I think you’ll like her,’ he said. And all he added was, ‘she reads.’ So I told him that meant nothing. We could have totally different taste in books.”
“Well, he definitely made it a point to find out exactly what stories I liked most.”
With a laugh, Aspen pushed back from the table and stood before moving to the cabinets where she already had dough rolled out on the counter. As she started to cut it into strings, she said, “I told him one time—just one time—that I’d always wanted a friend, you know, like a girl friend I could shop with, or go to the salon and gossip with, maybe chat about books with. I had no idea he’d make it his new life mission to find me one.”
I nodded. “That explains why he once asked me what my favorite stores were and where I liked to get my hair done.”
Aspen dropped the knife on the counter and whirled to face me, her mouth hanging open. “He did not.”
“He so did.” When she merely blinked, I said, “I think it’s adorable that he started vetting women he met, testing whether they were good enough to make friends with his woman, just because she wanted one.”
“He’s definitely something,” she murmured as if ready to scold him, except something sparkling in her eyes told me how honored she really was by what he’d done.
“He loves you,” I said, feeling an ache rise from the pit of my stomach. “A lot.”
Aspen heard the yearning in my voice and smiled sadly. “Yeah,” she said, right before adding, “You’ll find that someday. You’re too amazing not to.”
I already have, I didn’t tell her.
I was kind of tempted to spill my great love story. I’d never told her about my summer six years before. I’d never told anyone. But Aspen Gamble really had become the best girl friend I’d ever had in the past few months, and if I were to confide in anyone, it would be her.
But something held me back. It probably wasn’t very tactful to mourn over one guy when you’d just been dumped by another.
Any other promises? I’d asked him that day, the last time I’d seen him before the sheriff had dragged him out of my life in handcuffs and I’d never heard from him again.
Yeah, he’d said, grasping a piece of my hair and winding it around his finger. Though fear lingered in his eyes and his lips trembled with apprehension, he’d grinned at me. Don’t ever cut your hair short.
I’d wanted him to ask me to wait for him. I planned on it anyway, but he’d wanted to be cute and try to say something to make me smile. I’d burst into tears instead, and my father and the sheriff had walked into the office where they’d had Knox tied up and restrained.
I have no idea what happened to him after that. Father had made Max and Garrett drag me weeping from the room.
Fingering my hair, I grew suddenly mad. Why was I still keeping my hair long for him? I’d stopped waiting for him two years ago, when he should’ve gotten out of prison. He’d made his own bed when he’d done what he’d done. So why was I still granting him this one last request? Why was I not even trying to fall in love with other men like Cam? Well, maybe not cheater men like Cam, but awesome, deserving men.
“Speaking of salons, I want to get a haircut,” I announced. “Like chop it all off. Make it super short.”
“Oh, but you have the most beautiful—” Something in my expression must’ve alerted Aspen not to finish her sentence. She tactfully cleared her throat. “Sure, whatever you want, Felicity. You know I’ll support any decision you make.”
I dropped my hand from my hair, feeling more defeated than before. “But I should probably find a place to stay for the night first.”
Man, my priorities were out of whack. I was such a mess.
“You’ll stay here, of course.”
Not expecting her offer, I gasped. Aspen and Noel were already housing his two younger brothers. They didn’t need to take on anyone else. “Oh...no. I couldn’t. Aspen, you know I didn’t come here looking for a handout or a couch to sleep on. I—”
“Of course, I know that. And we won’t make you sleep on the couch. We’ll bunk you in Brandt’s room.”
“But—” Uncomfortable about any kind of gift or charity, I did a quick mental calculation in my head, trying to figure out how much money I had available to spend on a motel room…for multiple nights. And that would be zero dollars and maybe, oh, about thirty-eight cents, give or take—mostly take—a hundred bucks or so.
Damn.
Before I could protest, though, the back door came flying open and Aspen’s husband swept into the kitchen, all six-foot-four sexy inches of him.
My best friend was such a lucky shit.
“Hey,” he started to greet her with a seductive grin before he noticed me.
After doing a quick double take to make sure, yes, I was really here, I swear disappointment glittered in his eyes. But at least he gave me a friendly enough greeting. “Hi, Felicity. What’re you—”
His attention was deterred when he noticed Aspen’s noodle project taking place on the cabinet counters. “What’s that?”
When he tried to glance around her to get a look, she dodged into his path, blocking his view. “Nothing.”
Noel’s gaze sprang to hers only for a slow smile to spread across his face. “You’re cooking something new again.”
She snorted. “No.”
But his grin only widened. And someone hand me a fan please, because Noel Gamble sure had a hormone-sizzling smile.
Aspen sighed and ground her teeth. “It won’t be ready until tomorrow. The noodles take a day to dry out.”
“Noodles?” Her husband cocked a curious eyebrow. “As in...?”
“Chicken and noodles,” she grumbled, obviously reluctant to break the surprise.
“Chicken and...noodles.” He whimpered, and I swear he was half a breath from coming in his jeans...jeans that looked really good on him from the side view I had at the table.
Gripping Aspen’s arms, Noel backed her into a cabinet. “Have I told you how much I love you lately?”
She glowed, not that I blamed her. I was tingling over here myself from just watching his sexy manhandling.
Biting her lip, she answered, “A couple times this morning.”
Noel tsked and shook his head. “That’s not nearly enough.”
When he kissed her, I glanced away, sighing, as the misery
of the day once again took its toll on me.
“I want to take you on this counter right now, get you all covered with flour, and—”
“Um, hey!” I waved my hand and glared irritably. “I’m still here.”
Aspen gasped and jerked out of Noel’s arms, flushing bright red as she covered her swollen, well-kissed lips. “Sorry.”
Noel didn’t look so apologetic. He scowled at the interruption and folded his arms across his bulging chest before resting his back against the counter and asking, “So, what’s up with you today, Bainbridge? Come over for baby details?”
Wait, what? I frowned. “Baby details?”
Was Aspen expecting?
“Oh, crap. I totally forgot!” She slapped a hand to her brow as she cringed. “Zoey went into labor today.”
“What?” I sprang from my seat, instantly alarmed. “Isn’t she, like, way early? Too early to be having a baby yet?”
Noel shrugged. “She did anyway. She went into labor and had it earlier today. The baby’s in NICU, but basically doing okay. I just got back from visiting them at the hospital.”
“How’s she doing?” Aspen asked, rubbing Noel’s arm. “Did you get to see the baby?”
“Through a window, but that was it. Zoey was worn out but still had enough energy to smile when we invaded her room. We decided to let her rest so we didn’t stay long.”
“Whew.” I swiped my hand over my brow and sank back into my seat. “Thank goodness they’re both okay. It was supposed to be a boy, right?”
Noel nodded. “J.B. And he has a head full of dark hair like his daddy.”
Aspen patted his shoulder. “Tell her about the mysterious hero.”
I glanced between them. “The what?”
“Ten told me some Good Samaritan drove Zoey to the hospital.”
“Huh?”
“After she went into labor, Zoey tried to drive herself to the hospital or something, I don’t know, but she stopped at some convenience store for help, and some stranger just up and drove her the rest of the way to the hospital. Turns out, Pick actually knew the guy from school, and get this, he’s some kind of fucking ex-con who just got out of prison today.”
