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He hums, looks me over. “You look like shit.”
I rest my head on the back cushion and palm my forehead. “I feel like shit. I think I’m catching the flu.”
“Nah, bro. You’re catching feelings. That’s love making you feel like shit. Welcome to hell.”
Digging my fingers into my hair, I scrub my scalp. It feels like my head is fighting what my gut’s trying to tell me. “I’m trying to get drunk in peace if you don’t mind.”
“At least you didn’t deny it. My new shrink would be proud of you.”
With a sideways glance, I check him out. “Why are you still sober?”
“I’m gonna quit booze and pills for a while. See what happens.”
This must have something to do with the new therapist he’s been seeing. Some of the guys dabble in Molly, better known as ecstasy, and coke. Some weed. I never have. After what drugs have done to my family, I was never tempted. The standing policy among us is don’t ask don’t tell. Everyone knows what’s at stake, what the consequences are if you get piss tested.
“She’s on a date.” D blinks, staring at me like I’m speaking in Chinese. “Alice. That’s why she’s not here,” I clarify.
The confusion on his face transforms into a loud burst of laughter.
“Great. That’s just great.” My mood takes another turn for the worse.
“And you let her?” I barely hear D say.
My head is filled with too many images of Alice on a date doing God knows what. And what if she wants to keep dating him? I’ll lose her anyway. It feels like my heart just took a running head dive into a cactus. Snatching the phone out of my pocket, I type.
Me: be with me.
With my heart thundering inside my chest, I press Send before I have a chance to erase it.
Katherine/Karen stumbles over to us towing her friend along. Long red hair, porn star rack. She giggles. It’s obnoxiously high-pitched. I recognize this one. I watch her size up Brock who’s been nursing the same beer for the past three hours.
He peels his eyes off the TV where highlights of the football game are playing to kill whatever plan she was concocting with a cold, hard stare and a shake of his head. Brock’s not an approachable dude on a good day. And never if you’re a semi-sober girl on the prowl.
“Reagan, have you met Tara?” Katherine/Karen says.
“We’ve met.” I tip my chin up, force a smile. I’ve met her more times than I care to remember, and she still doesn’t interest me.
They trip over each other and somehow Tara winds up in my lap with her arm around my neck and her tits in my face. Next to me, Cole’s head falls off my shoulder and he jerks awake. Tara giggles.
And that’s when Alice walks through the sliding glass doors.
I don’t know what comes over me. I honestly don’t have a clue except maybe a recessive male gene accidentally trips. Because seeing her standing in the open doorway dressed in a short blue skirt, a tight white shirt, high heels, and wearing makeup––Makeup. She never wears makeup––short-circuits my brain.
Instinct takes over, the ugly side of it. The side that makes me want to hurt someone. Unfortunately this usually ends with the wrong person getting hurt.
I grab giggling Tara by the back of the neck and smash my mouth to hers. The kiss lasts a good long while because, once given permission, Tara’s reluctant to let go of it. When I finally do come up for air, Alice is gone.
Cole is the first to speak up. “That was immensely shitty of you. Like something I would do. I don’t know what’s changed, but I don’t like it. Change it back.”
Extricating himself from the couch we’re all piled onto, he walks away.
Chapter 24
Alice
This was a bad idea. I’ve had a few lousy ones. This one, however, wins a blue ribbon for sheer stupidity. I can’t believe I paid for an Uber to come all the way over here only to get my teeth kicked in!
He saw me. He saw me standing there and he kissed her! Kissed her is an understatement. More like he ate her face. I’m so mad I could bend a crowbar…around his neck.
I’m glad I kissed Simon tonight. I was feeling really bad about it earlier. It sure felt like I was betraying Rea at the time. But now I’m glad I did. Besides, you can’t betray someone you are not in a relationship with. And in my defense, I only kissed Simon to see if there was any chemistry between us.
Mark that down as a big, fat no.
Unfortunately, zebras shouldn’t mate with jack asses, either. The kiss was lackluster at best––a close cousin to what kissing the back of my hand felt like when I was eleven––and the rest of the date was even stranger.
