EMILY
Tell me it was at least worth it? You know, leaving me alone in a bar, while you left with some mystery woman into the night? When did you even get home?? X
Jade laughed before replying to her best friend, who was not going to believe the night she had.
JADE
Good morning to you too, Sunshine! I’m good, thanks for asking :) OMG Em, it was beyond worth it!! I swear I’ve never met anyone like her before. We left the bar and just walked around the city all night–didn't get to bed until 5 a.m.!! X
She lay her phone on the bed beside her, a grin on her face.Three...two...one…her phone buzzed in her hand. Video chat request. It was Emily.
“I’m sorry,5 a.m.?! You’re trying to tell me, that you left the bar last night at 11 p.m. andwalked the city streets for 6 hours?!” Her best friend stared at her expectantly.
“No, don’t be silly, I got home at 5 am after walking her to her friend’s apartment, then got a taxi back to mine. So really, it was more like five and a half hours.” Jade grinned, knowing what Emily’s response was going to be.
“OK, Miss Pedantic, riddle me this: practicalities aside of walking the city for that long, giving you blisters and quite possibly having to pee down a dark alley, but are you seriously trying to tell me you talked that entire time? You didn’t know her before last night.Nobodyis that easy to talk to for that long. Not even you and I and we’ve been best friends for 20 years!” Emily took a breath. Jade could do nothing but smile.
“Em, I swear, I hadn’t met her before last night. We walked around the area just talking. We grabbed some gelato from Eddie’s truck in the food quarter. We hung out at the park off Main Street for a couple of hours. I walked her back to her friend’s apartment and grabbed a taxi home once she was through the door. It was...perfect.” Jade drifted off to thememories of last night. Tingles shivering down her spine as she remembered the electric feeling when their bodies touched.
“Just talking? Nothing else? I know you,Casanova; there’s no way you went that long without pulling some serious moves on her. Spill.” Emily demanded while moving around her kitchen to make coffee.
“She was different, Em.” Jade felt she was getting serious. “She was so easy to talk to, about anything and everything. We played 20 questions but excluded family and jobs. She’s a couple of years younger than me, but you wouldn’t know it. Em, she ticks practically every single one of my boxes and has the same deal breakers as me. Get this – she even hates coffee as much as I do!” Jade threw her arm across her face, burying her eyes in the crook of her elbow. “I think I’ve found her, Em, I don’t know what else to say.”
“Does this magical unicorn of a woman have a name? I’d like to write her a thank-you card for finally coming along and making you potentially change your deviant ways.” Emily barely kept the smirk off her face before adding, “I mean, she must be mythical to get that to happen, whether it’s after a night or a year!”
“April, her name is April. She’s amazing, Em. And her laugh?! That’s the thing that could make any hurt or heartache disappear.”
Jade got lost in memories of the night before again. The hours spent forgetting entirely about the world around them. The way their hands slotted together like they were made to hold the other, fingers perfectly entwined.
“Oi! Lovebird!” Emily shouted through the phone.
“Sorry, wait, what? Did you just call me‘lovebird’ like some sappy romantic from a movie?” Jade asked, horrified.
“If the shoe fits,” Emily laughed. “But I asked ‘when are you seeing her again’? Obviously, you’re going to after how well lastnight went...I’m going to assume there was kissing involved as I don’t believe you know how to be in the company of an attractive female without making moves on her and locking lips at least twice.”
“Three times actually, but that’s beside the point. Plus...” Jade couldn’t believe she was about to say this out loud, “...I forgot to get her number.”
The volume and length of laughter that emanated from her phone was beyond enough. Quite frankly, Jade felt she should have hung up on her so-called best friend.
“I’m sorry,” Emily sputtered, “youforgot to get her number?” She was gone again. Laughing. Crying. Failing to breathe. Jade hung up.
Emily called back straight away, laughter and tears remaining on the screen.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop!” Emily blew out a long breath to calm herself enough to continue. “So let me get this straight, and please, correct me if I get anything wrong. You went out to the bar with me last night, after only two hours of our first night out in three weeks you left me for a mystery woman. You then proceed to spend the next six”
“Five and a half,” Jade corrected.
“Sorry, the nextfive and a halfhours just walking around the city talking, kissing a few times, then romantically walking her home -”
“Not home, to her friend’s apartment,” Jade corrected again.
“Pedantic, but fine. Romantically walk herback to her friend’s apartmentafter what seems to have been a night handwritten for you out of some magical mystical fairytale...and youforgot to get her number!” Emily’s laughing started again.
Jade hung up on her for the second time.
Emily called back again, this time Jade answered and started talking over her friend’s weak excuses of an apology for a third time.
“Yes, ok? I had what was arguably the absolute best night of my entire life, bar none, with a woman who could only be described as my dream woman...and I got so caught up in the moment that I never even thought to get her number!” Jade pulled her pillow over her face and groaned.
