“How did you ever get the time off? I thought Heather was in the throes of dinner party season.”
Annie kept her eyes on the rack as she rolled them to the dot on the green felt. “I quit.”
I gasped. “When?”
“Uhm. About a week ago?”
“And the secrets keep coming out,” I marveled. “Do you even confide in me any more?”
“I’m not like you, Sibby. I don’t just dump emotion on anyone who will listen.”
I frowned. “I don’t do that.”
“You have a hard time hiding your feelings.”
“Well, you hide yours too well,” I threw back. “What did Caleb say when you told him you quit?”
“He doesn’t know.”
I stared at her, gripping the pool cue so tight my knuckles turned white. “Why not?”
She shrugged.
“Wow. Okay.” I picked up my glass of wine and took a sip. It was worse than Franzia, if that was possible. “I’ve never had a front row seat to watch someone self-destruct. What else you got coming? Hmm?”
She glared at me. “I’m not self-destructing.”
“Breaking up with Caleb for no reason. Quitting your job for—well, it’s about time, actually. But you didn’t tell me. Or Caleb. I want to know why.”
“Time for a change. That’s all.”
“Bullshit.”
We were in the middle of a stare down when someone asked, “Can we join you guys?”
Chapter 8
#blackandblue #nottalkingsteak
Two locals, both burly and muscled, clutching two beers, waited for us to answer. I was about to open my mouth and say no when Annie replied, “Sure.”
I frowned at her. Not only were we in the middle of a best friend fight (which we seemed to be having a lot lately), but we were also not single. I didn’t want to be joined by two dudes. I wanted to choke down the rest of my wine, play a game of pool, and wait for Aidan to show up and tell me we could go back to the woods.
Did I say that?
The woods weren’t that bad. My rash had cleared up, and the weather was still gorgeous. I totally had the showering thing down. It wasn’t ideal, but it was manageable. And Aidan’s libido was off the charts. Fresh air did the boy good.
And going to sleep with the tent vents open so I could hear the sounds of nature…well, I never thought I’d like it. But I did. Snuggling close to Aidan and smelling the campfire scent on his clothes and skin…it made me all—
“Buy me a shot?” Annie asked the brown-haired Hulk. I swore the guy had no neck.
“Sure,” he said, smiling down at her. They walked away from the pool table, leaving me with Trucker Hat.
“So—”
“I’m married,” I interrupted. “And I’m waiting for my husband.” I held up my ring finger to show him I wasn’t lying.
“Have a nice night,” he said and slunk away. He took his drink back to the bar, leaving me alone at the pool table.
I heard a feminine giggle.
Annie was getting into trouble, and she wasn’t listening to me. My oldest friend in the world was going through something, and she was actively keeping me out of it. But there was only so much I could do. I couldn’t stop her behavior—she was an adult, but I sure as hell would not aid her.
I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Aidan. Caleb was Annie’s boyfriend, and it was up to him to decide if he wanted to get involved. Then again, the guy wanted to marry her, so I couldn’t imagine he’d be at all okay seeing Annie flirting and giggling over some other guy.
Grabbing my drink, I sat at the bar. I found a seat in the corner to nurse the swill they called wine. Also from my view, I could see Annie. She was leaning forward, brushing her breasts against the burly guy’s chest. Throwing her head back, she laughed.
I drank more wine.
The door to the bar opened, and Aidan’s tall form stepped through. He turned his head and found me. Caleb was one step behind him.
“What the fuck?” I heard Caleb say. “Is she drunk?” He looked at me when he asked the question.
“As far as I know, no,” I said.
Caleb sauntered toward Annie and the guy while Aidan came to me. “Did you try and stop her?”
“No, I actually pushed her in that guy’s direction.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course I tried to stop her. She doesn’t want to be stopped.”
I watched Caleb put his hand on Annie’s arm, and then Hulk stepped forward, his face darkening with a scowl.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Caleb said. He was a few inches shorter than Hulk and definitely leaner. “And we’re ready to get out of here.”
“She doesn’t look like she wants to leave,” Hulk said. He pushed out his chest, trying to appear bigger which wasn’t necessary.
“Annie, come on. Let’s go.”
“I’m not ready to leave. I’m having fun.” She swayed on her feet. Guess she’d done a few more shots I hadn’t seen.
“You’re drunk,” Caleb said, reaching for her hand. “Let’s go sleep it off.”
“No!” she yelled and shrugged out of his grip. “You’re always trying to tell me what to do!”
Caleb took a step forward, in between Annie and Hulk. “We can talk about this at home.”
Everything happened pretty fast after that. Insanity ensued. Shouts, curses, and then Aidan jumped into the fray and took a punch to the nose. The cluster-fuck ended when the bartender dumped a bucket of ice onto Hulk, Caleb, and Aidan.
“Not in my bar!” the bartender yelled. “Get out! The four of ya!”
I ran to Annie who was standing by in stupid shock. Grabbing her arm, I made sure she had her purse, and then I tugged her toward the exit. Aidan and Caleb stumbled out after. Caleb’s shirt was ripped, and even in the dying afternoon light, I could tell his right eye was red. It would be black by tomorrow.
“Fuck, my nose is bleeding,” Aidan said, leaning over on the sidewalk. I dropped Annie’s hand and ran to him.
I removed my black, long-sleeved shirt and handed it to him. He pressed it to his nose and remained hunched over to tend to himself. Caleb was also bent over, breathing hard.
“You okay?” I called to him.
He managed a nod. “Got the wind knocked out of me. I’ll be okay.”
I glanced at Annie who was standing off to the side, staring down at Caleb with a glazed look. A wave of anger overcame me, but I clenched my jaw shut. She was drunk, and there was no use fighting with her about her behavior even though she’d gotten her own boyfriend punched in the eye, not to mention Aidan had gotten injured trying to break up the fight.
“How attached are you to this?” Aidan asked, rising. His nose had stopped bleeding, and my shirt was crumbled in his hand.
“I’m not.”
“I’m gonna get rid of it. Don’t want to bring it back to camp.”
I nodded. He found a public trashcan a few feet from the bar and threw away my ruined shirt. He came back, and I wrapped him in my arms. “How’s the nose?”
“I’ll need some Advil pretty soon. It already throbs.”
“Broken?”
“Nah. Just bruised.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “I don’t want him driving. I don’t think he’s in the head space for it.”
“His eye’s swelling shut too.”
“You guys take Caleb’s car.”
I nodded. “We’ll follow you.”
Seething, I climbed into the driver’s side of Caleb’s blue Subaru. I adjusted the seat and mirrors, waiting for Annie to get her ass into the car. It was painful watching Caleb and Annie interact through the windshield. I couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other, but Caleb’s shoulders were tight with tension, his mouth rigid. Annie looked completely confused, like she didn’t know how she’d gotten there.
Vodka, I wanted to shout at her. But it wasn’t the vodka. The vodka had been what had allowed her twisted behavior to come out.
The passenger side of the
car opened, and she slid inside. She slowly buckled herself in, keeping her eyes frontward. She took a deep breath; I knew she was about to speak, but I cut her off.
“Don’t,” I warned. “Just don’t.”
“Okay,” she said, voice sounding small.
She was my oldest friend in the world, and I loved her. But at that moment, I really didn’t like her.
We drove back to our camp in complete silence. The moment I parked, she unbuckled her seatbelt and was out before I’d even unlatched myself. When I opened the door, I heard it: the sound of her puking.
Aidan and Caleb were just climbing out of the truck when they glanced at me.
“I’ll go,” I volunteered. “Let me just get her some water.” I headed for the water cooler and Aidan followed me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caleb go into the tent he was sharing with Annie.
“He doesn’t want to stay with her tonight,” Aidan told me, his voice low.
I sighed. “Can’t blame him.”
“Do you mind if you swap places with Caleb? Will you crash with Annie? He wants some time away from her before driving back to the city.”
“All right. I’ll bunk with her. But I have to say, she’s not my favorite person at the moment.”
“What’s going on with her?” he asked.
I shrugged. “She won’t confide in me, Aidan.”
Caleb came out of his shared tent with Annie, holding some personal belongings. He shot Aidan a questioning glance and looked relieved when Aidan nodded. As I passed Caleb, I placed my hand on his arm in a show of compassion before heading toward my drunken best friend.
She was about ten feet away, bent over, resting her head on a tree. Even in the dying sunlight, I could tell she wasn’t just physically feeling bad, but emotionally, too.
“I’m never drinking vodka again,” she vowed.
“Until the next time,” I said in dry humor. “Here.” I held out the bottle of water. She stood up slowly and grasped it.
Leaning against the tree, she unscrewed the lid. She drank half the bottle before coming up for air. “Is he—”
“Still here,” I said. “But spending the night with Aidan in the rooftop tent.”
Annie clutched the bottle of water. “I’ve really screwed this all up, haven’t I?”
“Yep, you have.”
“You’re pissed at me.”
“More worried than pissed. But yeah, I’m pissed.”
A light behind us flared to life. Aidan had lit the lantern, and it cast a warm glow over the campsite. When it went dark, there would be no problem walking around. Caleb was nowhere to be seen—I imagined he’d curled up in the tent with a bottle of bourbon and would pass out soon.
“You hungry?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I think I just want to go to bed.”
The sun had fully set, and Aidan and I were sitting by the campfire. Both Annie and Caleb were passed out in different tents, sleeping off their emotional hangovers.
“I think this is my fault,” Aidan said.
I placed my hand on his thigh. “Why would you even say that?”
He shrugged. “I invited them up here, didn’t I? All because of”—he looked at me—“what’s going on with us.”
Pulling my hand away, I hunched toward the warmth of the fire. “Their issues aren’t our issues. And they would’ve come out anyway. She quit her job and didn’t tell him. She didn’t even tell me. I found out today .”
“Maybe she’s having a mid-life crisis.” He paused. “Fifteen years too early.”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s freaked out because she’s turning thirty.”
“Thirty is a weird birthday,” he admitted. “It’s like, ‘Oh, God, I’m thirty. I have to have my shit together!’”
“How did that work out for you?” I asked with a smirk.
“Caleb and I spent most of it drunk and morose,” he quipped.
Aidan had been thirty-one when we’d met. Apparently, I’d missed the show.
“I think for women, it’s like, I don’t know…a crossroads? Like if you’re unhappy at your job, you wonder if you should stick it out because you don’t want to be seen as flighty or a quitter. You marry the guy you’ve been with for a few years even though you think about what else is out there. And also…” I swallowed. “That’s when the clock starts ticking.”
“Do you feel any of that?” he asked. “Are you unhappy in any—”
I placed my hand on his leg again. “God, no. I’m the opposite of unhappy.” I smiled. “I’m so glad I got fired from that mediocre job and Matt and I broke up. All that led to you. And to writing.”
He smiled slightly. “I remember the night we met like it was yesterday.”
Annie had been trying to cheer me up after the demise of my job and the demise of my relationship, so we’d partied on the Upper East Side where we’d met Aidan and Caleb. I’d gone home with Aidan, and she’d gone home with Caleb.
I snorted.
“What?”
“Just weird. I was thinking about the night we all met. I ended up marrying you.” I grinned and then it slipped. “And Annie…”
“Has her own shit to figure out.”
I buried my head in my hands. “Ugh. This is going to be so awful. We’re going to have to choose sides. I hate choosing sides.”
“I choose him,” Aidan said quietly.
Swallowing, I hated to think that sometimes history with a friend wasn’t enough. “I’d choose him, too.”
Chapter 9
#seriously #Sibbyout
“Sibby?”
If I pretended to be asleep, would she give up?
“Sibby,” she said a bit louder.
“What,” I snapped into the pillow, my face squashed.
“I hear something outside the tent.”
“You only think you do,” I explained. “You’ll get used to it. Go back to sleep.”
“I know that I hear something!” Annie hissed.
Because it was pitch black in the tent, she couldn’t see me roll over and stick out my tongue. “Crap, now I’m awake, and I have to pee.”
It had taken me an hour to fall asleep. First of all, the rooftop tent was stupid comfortable. It had a one-inch memory foam mattress. To go from that to sleeping on the ground in a tent…rocks, roots, cold. The ground was cold.
And now I had to get up, assuage Annie’s fear that there wasn’t an animal lurking around outside the tent and then use the bathroom.
“I had a flashlight in here somewhere,” I muttered, rooting around near my head. I found it underneath my pillow. “Light is coming on.”
I’d gone to sleep in sweats and a hoodie, and my Uggs were in the corner. I slipped them on and then looked over my shoulder at Annie who hadn’t moved from her sleeping bag.
“I’m going to open the tent and prove to you there’s nothing out there, okay?”
She nodded warily.
“Okay.” I unzipped the tent and shined the light outside and encountered a pair of black eyes. I screamed and dropped the flashlight. The beam illuminated the hind end of a scurrying beast with a ringed tail.
“Sibby?” Aidan was climbing down the ladder of the rooftop tent, his headlamp on its highest setting. He hit the ground and ran toward me. “What happened? I heard you scream!”
I pointed in the direction of the retreating animal. “I think a raccoon was trying to get into the tent.”
“Told you,” Annie muttered.
“Did either of you bring food into the tent?” he asked.
We shook our heads.
Aidan raised an eyebrow like he didn’t believe me. “You sure?”
“Yes, Aidan, I’m sure. You don’t have to sound so condescending.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
My jacket was in the corner of the tent. He crouched down, stuck a hand in one pocket, and came up empty.
“See? Told you, there’s nothing—”
His hand went into the other pocket and pu
lled out a half-eaten PayDay bar. “You were saying?” he asked in amusement.
“Everything okay?” Caleb called, sticking his head out of the rooftop tent.
“Sibby moment,” Aidan called back.
“Hey.” I lightly smacked his chest. “That’s not a thing. Don’t make that a thing.”
“What time is it?” Annie asked. I heard her stifle a yawn.
Aidan looked at his watch. “About five thirty.” He leaned in close to whisper, “How did you sleep?”
“My neck is kinda tight.” I rubbed the back of it. “How do people sleep on the ground, anyway?”
He smiled. “Got you hooked on my way of camping, huh?”
“Don’t put words into my mouth.” My stomach growled. “Put food in my mouth.”
He laughed. “You don’t want to try to go back to sleep?”
I sidled up to him. “Maybe a midday nap?”
“It’s five thirty in the morning and you’re frisky. Nature agrees with you.”
Leaning down, I gave him a nice view and a suggestive wiggle.
“You know I can hear you, right?” Annie said.
I stepped outside to zip up the tent. “Go back to bed. You’re grumpy.”
Caleb and Annie left three hours later. They’d loaded the car in silence, and I imagined the drive back to the city would be just as quiet. My goodbye with Annie had been nothing short of awkward. There was nothing to say at this point. She was determined to spiral out of control. I wasn’t her mother.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” I asked Aidan.
He finished the bite of hamburger before answering. “I don’t know.”
“Didn’t think for a second to lie to me, eh?”
“Two things could happen. She’ll hit rock bottom and have alienated everyone around her, and she’ll climb out of the hole. Or…”
“Or?”
He sighed. “Or she’ll be the girl who never gets her shit together. And you’ll have to decide if you’re okay having her in your life.”
The idea that Annie and I would someday not be friends jarred me to the core. She’d been in my life so long. I’d gone to her grandfather’s funeral with her. She’d spent the winter holidays with my family when her parents couldn’t be bothered to tell her they were going on a last-minute vacation. She’d been there for me through every stupid college breakup, post college breakup, doubts about life and my direction. She’d encouraged me to write a book. Her career had inspired me to write dirty chick lit about food and a chef. She was tied to every aspect of my life. She listened when I had writer’s block, read parts of my work that didn’t fit in anything I was working on, and encouraged me to keep going.
Tales of a Sibby Slicker (The Sibby Chronicles Book 2) Page 6
