AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Astrid was in a foul mood, and the universe seemed determined to fuck with her.
She’d spilled cereal milk down the front of her hoodie when she’d tripped over air on her way from the couch to her kitchen for a second bowl of Lucky Charms. Her right eye was bloodshot from getting shampoo in it, and yes, she had failed to completely rinse out all of the conditioner that was definitely not a leave-in. The thinning inner thigh fabric of her favorite leggings finally gave up the ghost, leaving an opening that had grown from the size of a dime to a dollar coin while she binged Real Housewives and scrolled the internet for travel deals. And as if that wasn’t enough, when she was walking across the living room to answer her door, she’d snagged her pinkie toe on the leg of a chair and the world went blank for a few seconds while sharp jolts of pure agony sucked the air out of her lungs.
By the time she opened the door—still grimacing from the pain—and saw Nola and Thea in matching Bingo Babes T-shirts, it took everything she had not to shut the door on their concerned expressions.
Totally unfazed by Astrid’s appearance, Thea held up a black baseball cap with blond hair hanging from it. “We’re breaking you out of here.”
Astrid looked from her friends’ determined expressions to the too-glossy-for-nature wig and back again. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been hiding out in your apartment for the past four days,” Nola said, making it sound like she’d been out robbing banks and kicking kittens.
“I haven’t been hiding,” Astrid said, her cheeks flaming as she moved aside so her friends could come in. “I’ve been strategically working from home while the team is on their first West Coast road trip of the regular season.”
Well, not the whole time. She’d shown up at the arena on Monday and had barely managed to avoid a certain shithead reporter that had been spotted at the arena asking about interviewing Astrid. The balls on that woman were Godzilla sized.
Nola flopped down onto the couch and snagged a Cheeto from the open bag on the coffee table. “Did you know that Andy kicked that reporter out of the pub the other night?”
Shock stopped Astrid in her tracks. “Andy did that?” Really, she figured he would have sold her out with an almost true story about her time behind the bar.
“Yeah,” Thea said, nodding as she took a water bottle from the fridge. “He said he owed you for skipping out on the Fuck Hockey jar.”
Astrid sat down hard on one of the stools by the kitchen island, the effort it took to process such an out-of-character action taking away from her physical coordination. “Did he hit his head?”
Nola let out a cackle of a laugh. “That was my first thought, too—well, that someone hit his head for him—but it turns out that he has been doing some soul searching since he almost got run over by a woman driving like a bat out of hell on one of those rented City Scooters that are everywhere now. There’s nothing like having your life as a slime ball flash before your eyes to get you to change your asshole ways.” She finished up the last of the Cheetos. “The other good news is we brought you a disguise in case the reporter makes another appearance at the pub.” Nola tossed the baseball cap wig.
Acting on reflex, Astrid reached up and caught it. The definitely highly flammable wig was scratchy in her hand. There was no way she was putting it on and wearing it for pub bingo. Even a few hours of freedom wasn’t worth that.
“Plus Andy promised he’d reserve the back corner booth for us. So…”
Nola nodded at Thea, who started giggling. Then they both reached into their tote bags and took out their own black hats with chin-length blond wigs attached and put them on.
“It’s time for the Bingo Babes,” Thea finished with a theatrical hair flip.
Despite her mood, Astrid couldn’t help but smile. How could she not when looking at her best friends in the world do their unhinged best to cheer her up? Still, the whole idea was utterly ridiculous.
“This feels like a trap,” Astrid said, shaking her head.
“It is,” Thea said without an ounce of shame. “It’s us trapping you and getting you the hell out of this place.” She looked over at the mess of Astrid’s kitchen counters. “Why do you have two empty boxes of Lucky Charms on the counter?”
Rather than answer that with the embarrassing fact that all she’d eaten for the past few days was her magically delicious comfort food, Astrid swiped the Bingo Babe T-shirt Nola was holding out. “I’ll go change.”
She ignored the high five they gave each other and changed in the bathroom. Ten minutes later, she was sitting in the middle of the back corner booth with her hands clasped tight around the cold bottle of Sweet Salvation IPA so she wouldn’t give into the itch from wearing the baseball cap wig because she had not been wrong about just how bad it would be.
The pub was packed tonight for costume bingo, but no one was looking their way, not with the teams dressed like ’80s workout instructors, nerdy accountants with matching pocket protectors, and firefighters whose costumes were made up of only bunker pants, suspenders, and cocky grins.
“Better than another night of inhaling green rainbow marshmallows?” Nola asked with a know-it-all smirk.
“It’s part of a nutritious breakfast,” Astrid said. “But yeah, this is better.”
Especially since if she was down here, she wouldn’t be spending another night listening for any—any squeak, thump, or creak coming from the ceiling, signaling Cal was home and maybe coming down to see her.
And the fact that she was studying the face of every costumed guy in the pub and not just appreciating the firefighters’ muscular bare chests? That was because she was on guard for Jane Gilbert, reporter from hell. No other reason. Definitely not because Cal might be here, hoping to run into her.
Spoiler alert: that wasn’t going to happen. She’d told him to go and he had. Which was good. Perfect. Ah-may-zing.
She was fine with how things had turned out.
“Fine,” she grumbled to herself as she fidgeted with one of the bingo markers laying on the table. “Abso-fucking-lutely fine.”
