Thoughts of Wren out at a club, dancing and laughing and having fun while guys tried to buy her drinks, were definitely not going to help him sleep tonight. Or tomorrow night.
The woman was hell on his REM sleep cycle.
Chapter Seven
Wren sipped her vodka and soda, straining to hear the conversation from the other side of the small, round table they’d crowded around. The bar wasn’t very big—more of an upscale cocktail lounge, really—and they kept the music low, but the acoustics weren’t great and the more people around them drank, the louder they talked.
She and Cait had chosen to take a Lyft over together, and when they arrived, she’d been greeted with varying degrees of warmth. Everybody was nice enough, of course, but she was aware that Ashley, in particular, was a little cool.
It was a well-deserved reminder that everybody at the table was Team Grant. She knew none of them would be here at all if he wasn’t okay with it, but they also weren’t going to magically forget what she’d done.
She wished Olivia was here. She’d only met her once—when Derek brought her to Aidan and Lydia’s Labor Day barbecue—but she’d liked her. She was quiet, like Wren, though not shy.
Cait’s knee bumped hers under the table in a way that had to be deliberate. When Wren looked up from her drink, Cait gave her a questioning glance so she smiled and tried to look like she was having fun.
Cait leaned close. “Do you want to leave?”
Apparently she wasn’t a great actress. “No, I’m good.”
The exchange got the attention of the other women, though. They’d been talking about baby stuff, since the news had broken that Lydia and Jamie were both expecting, and Wren had offered her congratulations, but she didn’t have a lot beyond that to add. She didn’t have a lot of experience with babies.
“How is everything at Patty’s?” Jamie asked her. “Do you have everything you need?”
“I do. Just the bare minimum of course, but I don’t need a lot.” It was hard on her throat, talking loudly enough to be heard by everybody, but at least she wasn’t coughing at the moment. “Grant took me shopping the day after the fire and I got what I needed to be able to go to work. And, you know, brush my teeth and stuff.”
“And stuff to shave your legs?” Ashley asked and Wren blushed when the other women giving her expectant looks made the meaning of the question sink in.
“Well, it’s February, so I don’t really have to worry about it yet,” she said. She’d thought about Grant when she was at the store with Patty, though, and had a moment of optimism. “But I did buy a razor, just in case.”
More laughter, and then Lydia stood. “Enough sitting around, talking. Let’s dance.”
Cait groaned. “The dance floor is smaller than my bathroom.”
“So we’ll dance close,” Lydia insisted. “Wren, let’s go. It’s time to have some fun.”
Maybe heat from too many dancing bodies in a small space turned up the alcohol’s effects, but Wren had a lot more fun than she thought she would. Even though she had to stop to cough now and then, she didn’t want to sit. None of them could dance worth a damn, but they did it anyway, laughing and twirling and shaking their asses.
When her body needed a short rest, she went to the bar and asked for a soda water with a splash of cranberry—hold the vodka. Not only was it cheaper that way, but she had too much on her plate to deal with a hangover, too. Nor did she want to stagger, drunk, through Patty’s house in the wee hours.
She was leaning against the bar, sipping her drink, when a man approached her. He was good-looking, she supposed. Dark hair and beard, with an okay build. A little thin for her taste, but he dressed well. And he was smiling at her in a bland, nonthreatening way.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Frank.”
“Hi.” She wasn’t giving him her name.
“Is it your first time here?”
She wondered if that was his standard opening line or if he spent so much time here, he recognized the regulars. “Yes, it is.”
“Cool place. Can I buy you a drink?”
Smiling in what she hoped was a polite, but tinged with fake regret way, she held up her glass. “I already have one, but thanks.”
“I can buy the next one, then,”
He was persistent. She’d give him that. “I’m here with friends, actually. But it was nice to meet you, Frank.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” It actually seemed like he wasn’t going to get pushy with her, which was a pleasant surprise. “Maybe I’ll see you around another time.”
