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“What is your most embarrassing moment?” Lilly asked him.
Rick appeared surprised by the question. But then he looked out into the crowd, and actually locked eyes with her. “Why don’t you ask Sloane O’Toole? My most embarrassing moment involved her, a party I wasn’t invited too, a little too much Jack Daniels, and a kiss.”
Sloane was stunned. Her cheeks started to burn as everyone swiveled and looked at her. Awkward. The night just kept rolling that way.
“Damn,” Becca murmured. “He’s calling you out.”
Rick gave her a smirk, then turned back to Lilly. “Let’s just say Little Dickie was no match for the senior mean girl.”
It was too much. It was the last thing she needed to hear tonight. On her birthday. When she was feeling just a tad bit vulnerable. She did not need to be called out for the fact that she had been entitled in high school, a little bit rebellious, a little bit arrogant. It was true. She’d been less than nice at times, blessed with a father who showered her with attention and gifts to make up for her mother leaving, and status in the popular crowd at school. It had given her a false sense of power that she’d had no right to wield.
She’d been horrible when her boyfriend Nick had walked into the bat
hroom and caught her kissing Dickie. She had screamed and protested that it was an accident, said it was completely gross, that Dickie was drunk and an idiot and had essentially tricked her. It had been her worst social nightmare and everyone had laughed about it for days. Dickie had caught a lot of heat, but she’d been too wrapped up in preserving her own relationship and her status as a popular senior to pay much attention to the fallout for him.
She had been selfish. Plain and simple.
But to have him say that over the mic, tonight of all nights?
It upset her. Irrationally so. Blindly so.
Because she was worried that she had no clue who she was anymore. She wasn’t the popular girl in school. She wasn’t the trophy wife. She had no career, no money, no dog. Who the hell was she? It made her feel panicky and angry and scared.
Sloane looked away from the stage, trying to avert her eyes where someone wasn’t staring at her because they were liable to see she was about to melt down.
Instead, she saw Becca’s boyfriend Josh had shown up and they were tenderly kissing.
Which was sweet. Becca loved Josh and from what she had seen of him, Sloane thought he was a nice guy. It didn’t matter that it was a girls’ night or her birthday. Sloane was not that freaking selfish. Not at her age. Not like back in the day.
But she did need some fresh air.
Jumping up, she grabbed her purse and took off for the exit. She saw her father behind the bar watching her with alarm but she just waved to him and kept going. Bursting into the parking lot, she wasn’t even sure what exactly she was feeling. The summer air washed over her, warm and oppressive. Her car was right up front and she dug her keys out of her purse.
Scratch that. She knew what she was feeling.
Attracted to Rick.
And he had teased her like she had once teased him.
Which should be no big deal. Except for whatever totally mortifying reason, she couldn’t take it tonight. She had dished it out back in high school and now she couldn’t take it. Which made her really annoyed with herself.
Desperate to get home to her new tiny apartment and pull herself together, she put the car in reverse and took her foot off the brake. Unfortunately, what she didn’t see was there a motorcycle squeezed in beside her car. There was a crash and she stomped on the brakes, her head jerking forward. “Oh, shit,” she whispered. In her side mirror she could see she had knocked the bike over.
This was the most fitting ending to the strangest birthday ever.
With a sigh she turned the engine off, afraid to get out and see what damage her car had done. Biting her lip, she called her dad. He answered right away but she could barely hear him over the hooting inside the bar.
“Never mind, I’ll text you.” Resigned, she got out of the car and winced at the shiny, but now very much dented motorcycle.
Sloane sent her father a text.
Tell the owner of motorcycle with the license plate 162GHF to meet me in the parking lot. There’s been a slight accident.
“This is so stupid,” she seethed out loud. “I should have stayed home and watched Netflix.”
Especially when a few minutes later the door to the bar flew open and Rick was standing there, illuminated by the parking lot lights, wearing nothing but boxer briefs and a look of alarm.
Oh. My. God. She had nailed Rick’s bike.
