“He said he can’t imagine fucking only one woman his entire life, but I think I might throw up if I tried to sleep with someone else.” She swallowed hard, and her face crumpled, but she reined it in after a moment. “I’m pathetic,” she slurred.
I didn’t know what to say. Every thought in my head was how her ex-husband seemed like a piece of shit who she was lucky to be rid of. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Placating her by telling her she’d find someone else wasn’t an option either.
So, I focused on the way her golden hair felt like silk between my fingers and told her something true, knowing she probably wouldn’t remember it in the morning. “This, right now, is the kind of hurt that you think you’ll never get over because you can’t see the other side of it. You can’t go around either. It’s just too big. The only way forward is through. You’ll get there, Clyde. It just takes time.”
Her breath came out on a soft snore, and I smiled sadly down at the fucking disaster sprawled across my lap. She was passed out again.
My sage advice and moment of vulnerability hadn’t even mattered.
I’d dredged up my memories like silt in a riverbed. Thoughts turned to my family and all those old hurts that I’d had to go through—just like I’d told Bonnie. I’d climbed them like a jagged mountain peak. With bloody knuckles and dirt beneath my nails.
But I’d made it, and I was better off for it in the long run.
I listened to the steady sounds of her breathing and knew instinctively that Bonnie would be too.
two
BONNIE
I was pretty sure there was a red-bellied woodpecker inside my head, going to town on whatever brain matter was left in there.
With a hand to my temple, I sat up shakily in a room I didn’t recognize.
I supposed I should have been more alarmed, but I couldn’t really envision the owner of this place being a serial killer, what with the glass of water and bottle of pain relievers sitting on the bedside table. And all the framed amateur watercolor landscape paintings on the walls. Also, the stack of library books on the dresser. I was on the waitlist for the second one from the top.
After I swallowed two pills from the previously unopened plastic bottle, my eyes snagged on a leather jacket hanging on the back of the bedroom door. Embarrassment had me groaning quietly as hazy memories flooded my system along with a pretty good idea of who that jacket belonged to.
Jack Ellis was every inch the small-town bad boy, except now he was in his early thirties. He was a few years older than me, but we’d gone to school together. Me, an overachieving goody-goody. Him, somehow both popular and a loner who hadn’t known I existed. I’d seen him around town since high school, of course. We actually played in the same softball league. But Jack didn’t know me, and all my knowledge of him was based on gossip and leftover teenage memories.
Currently, I was desperately trying to remember how I’d ended up in his bed.
A glance beneath the covers revealed the clothes I’d worn to the bar last night. My dress was rumpled, but my underwear was still present and accounted for.
I guess it wasn’t so far-fetched that I’d ended up with Jack. He worked as a bartender at Magnolia. But when I tried to pull up the faces of the folks serving me drinks last night, only Kayla’s and Sasha’s came to mind.
The memory of a flavorful samosa rattled around for a moment before abandoning me.
I finished off the glass of water and figured it was time to face whatever hell I’d wrought.
This was what I got for trying to do something reckless and impulsive for once. A blinding hangover and humiliation so painful it rivaled my current headache.
I may not have behaved responsibly last night, what with trying to celebrate my divorce by finding some stranger to hook up with, but at least I’d taken myself to Magnolia rather than Mattie B’s. The fancyleaferbar had really been the only option. If I’d gone to Mattie B’s, I would have run into no less than five people I knew, probably at least one a member of my family. I was pretty sure the ground would have opened up and swallowedme whole if I’d encountered one of my students’ families while trolling for a one-night stand.
But the longer I’d sat on that leather barstool at Magnolia, the harder it had been to convince myself that going home with someone was what I really wanted. That sticking it to a husband—an ex-husband, I mentally corrected—who didn’t even want me, might not have been the best way forward. So I’d ordered a refill to loosen up. And then I’d gotten friendly, which was what always happened when I drank too much. Well, that and crying.
It didn’t matter because I’d sailed right past tipsy, fun, and looking to get laid and straight into plastered territory.
God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much alcohol. Maybe one of the very few college parties I’d attended during undergrad. When you’d married young and your husband was back in your hometown, you typically drove the hour and a half home every weekend to see him. College parties had been few and far between for bright-eyed, optimistic coed Bonnie.
Now I just felt worn down around the edges. Like a penny that had been in circulation too long, weathered, lackluster, and not worth picking up if you saw it on the street. Also, there was the hangover thing. My head pounded and my belly churned, and there was a very real possibility I was going to vomit in the near future.
A vague recollection of memories assaulted me. A clean bathroom with white subway tile, a fuzzy gray bathmat, and a pair of firm thighs under my cheek.
Maybe I’d already done plenty of vomiting.
Cupping my palm in front of my face, I breathed into it. My eyes watered, and I gagged a little. Yep, I had definitely spent a portion of last night puking.
That was confirmed when I opened the ajar bedroom door and spied the dim bathroom across the way.
