by Brynne Asher
I slide my thumb across my TRD and say in a voice way too high to be my own, “Hi.”
“Gabby?” Jude rasps.
“Hey, yeah, it’s me. Sorry,” I apologize for … something.
“You okay? You still at the restaurant?”
I sigh big into the phone, loving the sound of his voice. “I’m great. Still at Bonefish. We got our last round and, oh, thanks Cody, we’re just getting our bill. Whatcha’ doin’, Jude?” I ask as I hand over my Visa to Cody.
“Who’s Cody?” Jude’s raspy voice turns surly and terse.
“He’s our waiter. He’s gotta muscle car and he’s hoping to nail some hot chicks with it.” I pause, putting my hand up to cup my mouth around my TRD speak low. “But I don’t know how well that’s gonna work out for him, if you ya know what I mean.”
“Sugar, how much have you had to drink?”
“I dunno. I’m gonna have to check my bill, but Cody just took it away with my Visa.”
“Who’s driving?”
“Hmm?” He sure is asking a lot of questions and it’s hard to concentrate when his voice is coming through the TRD so close to my ear. It’s like he’s talking only to me.
“Driving, how are you getting home?” he goes on.
“Oh, we’re calling an Uber. We’re gonna Google it on the TRD,” I announce, proud of myself.
“Ask him what his tattoo is,” Lilly butts in loudly.
“Shhh,” I hush into the phone at the same time waving my free arm around to shush her up. “Sorry about that, Lilly doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“I’m coming to get you, take you all home. Do not call an Uber.” He’s back to bossy.
“No, no. We’re gonna split it. Plus, you don’t even know where we are,” I say, uppity-like.
“You just told me you’re at Bonefish. If you call an Uber, I’m not gonna be happy. I’m leaving your house in five, be ready to go in fifteen,” he keeps bossing.
“But, we still have one and one third drinks left. We can’t drink that all in fifteen minutes. We’ll be drunk if we drink that fast.” I defend my position.
“Fifteen minutes, Gabby.”
I can tell he’s getting ready to hang up, so I yell into my TRD quickly, “Wait, Jude?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, since you’re at my house, will you let Mia come with you? She really likes to go for car rides and it would make her happy.”
I barely hear him laugh in a low sexy rasp and responds quickly. “Sugar. No. I’ll see you in fifteen.”
And he hangs up.
I end the call, setting my TRD on the table with a sigh. “I love his voice. Really, he has the best voice. But he’s not letting Mia come with him.”
“I’ve never heard him say much more than ‘hi’ because after you saw us at church, you dragged him into the sanctuary away from us,” Reagan complains.
“At least you’ve seen him, I’ve never even seen him,” Lilly grumbles, clearly feeling sorry for herself.
“Well, tonight’s your lucky night, chickadees. He’s picking us up. He said he’d be here in fifteen minutes, and you heard me, I tried to buy us more time because we are really going to be drunk if we drink these drinks that fast. But I told you he’s bossy, so all he had to say was, ‘Sugar. No. I’ll see you in fifteen.’” I do my best Jude impression.
Lilly and Reagan start laughing, Lilly saying, “He does not sound like that.”
“But he does,” I argue. “It’s low and raspy. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Raspy? Like a smoker raspy?” Reagan frowns. “Please tell me he doesn’t smoke. He’ll never be able to be around Ben.”
“No, he doesn’t smoke. At least I’ve never seen him smoke and he doesn’t taste like smoke. It’s just low and sexy. I don’t know how else to describe it.” I think as hard as I can for a comparison. Finally, I throw my hands up. “I know! Okay, stick with me here.” I look to Lilly and Reagan for verification they’re paying attention. “Alright, if he sang everything he said, he would sound a lot like Nickelback.”
“He’s a singer?” Lilly asks, obviously not sticking with me. She looks at Reagan, who looks equally confused.
“No. But he sounds like that. That deep voice, ya know?” I take a big slurp of my drink.
“You mean like Nickelback Rockstar or Nickelback Photograph?” Reagan asks, needing clarification.
“Hmm.” I think, taking yet another big gulp. “I guess all Nickelback, but I’m thinking more Nickelback Lullaby or Nickelback Savin Me.”
“No way.” Reagan shakes her head. “No one can talk as good as Nickelback sings.”
“Whatever, you’ll see,” I say, high and mighty.
“Drink up, buttercup,” Lilly announces. “In T-minus ten we’ll get to experience the Nickelback-talking, mystery-tattoo-wearing, and ultra-sexy man that gonna get in Gabby’s pants.”
“Lilly!” I yell.
Then we all burst into a mass of hysteria.
I pull into the empty parking lot. It’s late, especially for restaurants in this city on a Tuesday, they’ve got to be closed by now. I don’t bother with a parking spot. I pull up by the curb, park, and head to the front door. It’s locked so I rap on the glass door with my fist.
A kid walks up and frowns. “We’re closed.”
I look beyond him into the empty restaurant and see three women, the back of Gabby’s dark blonde hair is one of them.
I point beyond him. “I’m here for them.”
He turns and looks at Gabby and her friends, then back to me, folding his arms over his chest. “They’re calling an Uber.”
I’ve lost my patience. I never do this, but it’s late, Gabby’s drunk, and I need to get her home, not stand on a sidewalk arguing with some punk through the fucking door. I pull out my badge and credentials, slam them up against the glass. “Open the door. Now.”
The kid looks at my badge then back to me. Shaking his head, he finally decides to throw the lock. I ignore him as I clear the door with my eyes on Gabby and make my way through the now empty restaurant.
As I near her table, I hear Gabby and her friends laughing. More like cackling. I recognize one of them from church but haven’t met the other. Gabby has one hand in her hair at the back of her head and is animated with the other. I give my head a shake and as I come up behind them, her two friends sitting across the table stop laughing as soon as they see me.
This should be fun. Since Gabby is alone on her side of the booth, I decide to join them. I haven’t seen her since this morning when I kissed her goodbye and left to get ready for work. She’s definitely getting under my skin. I can’t stop thinking about last night in her basement. Damn if she didn’t feel fucking great and I’ve hardly been able to concentrate on anything today thinking about having her under me.
As I slide in next to Gabby, she’s saying something about a hand in her hair when she senses me and looks over. Her eyes get big for a second and she give me her shocked as shit look she’s perfected, but then surprises me when she bursts into laughter. She’s beautiful when she laughs, too, and I realize this isn’t something she’s done much around me, but it’s been an intense few days.
I watch her as she starts to calm, throwing her hands up and slaps my shoulder and chest, looks up at me with tears of laughter in her eyes. “Ohmygoodness, that was funny!”
She’s wearing another tank top, but this one’s pink and has ruffles all down the front. I think she’s wearing another little skirt and her layers of silver beaded necklaces hang past her tits, matching her long earrings with about half a million thin silver, black, and beaded bracelets on one arm that jingled when she hit my chest. She’s wearing a little more makeup than I’ve seen on her and her hair is in in a mass of loose curls long down her back.
I can’t help myself, I’ve missed her. Putting my arm around, I put my hand down to the side of her sweet ass and when I give her a good yank into my side, she’s back to surprised.
> “Hi sugar.” I lean in, not able to wait another moment to get my lips on her. Instinctively she kisses me back, her fingers pressing into my chest until I let her go. “You look like you’re having fun.”
“Um, yeah. Fun.” She sighs before turning back to her friends, settling into the crook of my arm.
I look across the table to her friends. “I’m Jude.”
Gabby comes alert again, talking quicker than normal. “Oh sorry. Jude, this is Lilly Sutton. We went to high school together. And you met Reagan Ford at church, well, sort of. Lilly, Reagan, this is Jude Ortiz.” She enunciates my last name for some reason.
Lilly looks straight at Gabby, and for the second time, I hear, “He’s way hotter than James.”
Gabby’s appalled. “Lilly!”
“He is Gab,” Reagan agrees. And now I really want to know more about this James.
Lilly and Reagan give me drunken grins, giggling like five-year-old girls. Okay, it’s time to move this along.
“You all ready?” All three of them nod while giggling. “All right, let’s get you home.” I look over at Gabby’s friends and go on, “if you can remember where you live, that is.”
“I know where they live. I’ll lead the way,” Gabby says.
“Good, let’s go.” I grin and shake my head, standing to grab Gabby’s hand and pull her out after me. She stumbles a bit. She’s wearing tall black sandals, tied with ribbon above her ankle that have to boost her up just shy of six feet. Trying to keep my eyes off her legs and ass, I hold out my arm for her friends to go ahead of us. I hold Gabby’s hand to keep her close when I hear her friends start yelling out their goodbyes.
Lilly yells across the restaurant, “Bye Cody. Good luck with the car.”
“And nailing some hot chicks,” Reagan adds, just as loud.
“See ya ladies.” The punk kid lifts his chin to them where he’s cleaning behind the bar. I narrow my eyes and glare, thinking he must have enjoyed these drunk women all evening, and that pisses me off. I put my arm around Gabby and pull her to my side as we walk out to the car as Gabby starts rambling.
“I’m so sick of summer. I hate the humidity, it makes my hair frizzy. In another few weeks I’m gonna get to buy pumpkins. And mums. And Halloween candy.” She describes this with great joy like she knows for a fact she is going to win the lottery.
“Gabby loves fall. Like, a lot,” Reagan whispers loudly, as if she’s letting me in on a state secret. I get all three women loaded up, buckled in and Gabby directs me to the first destination.
“Can I mess with the radio?” Gabby asks.
“Sure.” She starts flipping through the stations so fast there’s no way she can tell what she’s listening to.
“Jude Ortiz,” Lilly starts. “I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you sing?” she asks and I immediately hear a horrified gasp from Gabby and Reagan laughs out loud.
“No,” I answer.
“Not at all?” she goes for clarification.
“No,” I repeat.
“Hmm,” she says. “Just curious, you sound like someone I know, is all.”
This time, Gabby fully turns around from the front seat to stare at her friend with her mouth open.
“What?” Lilly mutters. “Just checking.” Gabby gives her a glare and turns back to the radio.
“Maroon 5,” Gabby croons. “I love Maroon 5.”
All three drunkards start singing One More Night, emphasizing the oo-oo’s.
Taking way longer than I would have liked, we got both Lilly and Reagan home, all three women professing their love for one another.
Now it’s just Gabby and me on our way back to her house. She’s starting to come down from the drunkenness and is getting tired. Leaning her head on her window, she looks out at the night. I decide to try and get her talking.
“I’m glad you had fun. They seem to be good friends,” I start.
“Yeah, they’re the best. I wish Leigh could’ve come, but her husband is a controlling asshole. He never lets her go out with us anymore.” She turns to me and keeps talking. “Can you believe that? I mean, this isn’t nineteen-fifty. The only time we can get her out is if he’s out of town on business. I do not know why she married that man.”
“Who’s James?” I ask, changing the subject.
“James?”
“Yeah, James.” I look over at her and she’s got an uncomfortable look on her face.
She looks back out her window. “He’s just a guy I dated.”
“Recently?”
“No-no, not recently. Years ago.”
“Why do people keep talking about him?” I find myself needing to know more.
“I don’t know.” She looks back at me waving her hand around a bit. “Probably because he’s the last guy I dated and I thought he was the last guy I was ever gonna date.”
Okay, now I really need to know everything there is to know about James. “You haven’t dated anyone since him? How many years Gabby?”
“Mmm…probably like almost four years. I’ve been on a couple of dates here and there, but dat-ing anyone? Nope.”
She said she lost her parents over three and a half years ago. “How long did you date this James?”
“One year,” she lets out a big sigh, “and three months. Too long.”
“Too long?”
“Yeah, I was lucky. I probably dodged Leigh’s fate.”
“What do you mean?”
She turns to me and lays it out. “James wanted to do what James wanted to do. He wanted me at his side all the time and under his conditions. I’m an easy-going person, so I went with it. He was plain selfish. But in the end when my parents died, I wasn’t so easy going anymore. I apparently didn’t fit into his life as well as I did previously and he broke up with me. Really, it’s not that big of a deal, worse things happen to other people. But I do think I avoided the life my friend Leigh is now living because I have a feeling his selfishness could have turned controlling, but who knows.”
What a fucking asshole. I reach over, take her hand, resting it on the console and hold her tight. Pulling into her driveway, I press the button of the garage door opener she gave me this morning.
I throw my truck in park, turn to her, pulling her close. “I’m sorry you had that asshole in your life when you lost your parents. He should have fucking turned himself inside out for you, but selfishly I’m glad he broke up with you. Because he was a selfish jackass, I get to be the one to bring you home drunk from a night with your girls and I get to watch you laugh at nothing at all and I get to be the one to make sure your sweet, drunk ass gets to bed safe. I only hope you’ll be coherent enough to kiss me first. I’m sorry you had to deal with him, but I’m feeling fucking grateful right now that he was an asshole.”
She stares at me. I hope she remembers this tomorrow.
All of a sudden, she exclaims, “I don’t even know how old you are.”
“What?”
“I don’t know anything about you. How old are you? Where are you from? I feel like you know everything about me, but these last few days have been crazy and I know you but I don’t know you.”
“I’m thirty-three. We’ll start with that and if you don’t fall asleep I’ll even tell you where I’m from.” I can’t help but smile. The woman makes me happy in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
“You’re thirty-three? I thought you were twenty-nine or thirty,” she says.
“Am I too old for you, Gabby?” I tease, grinning and slide my hand in her thick hair so I can pull her closer to me.
“I’m almost twenty-eight. So, no, you’re not too old me, Jude,” she answers and I pull her in for a kiss.
“Let’s get you inside,” I say against her mouth.
“Okay,” she breathes back.
I let her go, get out to go around and make sure she doesn’t fall on her face in her shoes. When we get her into the house, she greets Mia quickly and heads straight to h
er pink childhood room.
“Gabby?” I call. She turns around while yanking her shoes off and tossing them, letting them land where they may. “Where’re your meds? I’ll get you something, you’re gonna need it.”
“It’s in my closet off the bathroom.” She’s now looking really tired.
I head to her master and turn the corner. Her bathroom looks top of the line. There’s two sinks on either side of the room with long counters on each. A freestanding tub sits across from the walk-in shower with a long bench across one side with enough room inside to do cartwheels. I find the door to her closet. Shit. She’s a lot of clothes and shoes—I’m pretty sure two people are supposed to share this space. Eyeing the medicine shelf, I find the Motrin and head back to the kitchen for a glass of water. When I walk into Gabby’s childhood room, I’m stopped dead in my tracks.
I should have knocked.
Standing with her back to me, she’s ditched her skirt and is standing there in black lace panties while pulling her black bra out from under the armpits of her tank. Unable to move, I watch her take two steps forward and put a knee in the bed, collapsing face first.
It’s all I can do to fight my hard-on just from seeing her lying in front of me. Doing my best, I move to her. “Sugar, you need to take these. Can you sit up?”
“Hmm?” she hums, face to the bed.
I move closer, putting a knee to the bed and lean over her. “Gabby, sit up. Take these and drink some water.”
She pushes up to an elbow and rolls, looking up at me and holds out her hand. I give her the pills, she takes them with a full gulp of water and lays on her side with her back to me. Putting the water on the nightstand, I lean down to kiss her head when she mumbles, “Jude?”
I lean farther, putting a fist to the bed so I can see her face and whisper, “Right here.”
She grabs my bicep and pulls. Running her hand down my arm to my hand, she threads her fingers through the back of mine, turning it to tuck it into her chest. I have to come down on a hip in back of her and lean on my elbow to not fall on her.
“Gabby?” I call to her.
Before I know it, she snuggles in so her back is against my chest and wiggles her ass tight into my lap. Pulling my arm in tighter, she mumbles, “I like you in my house.”
