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“I’m not under you.”
“Well, not anymore. But that was fun while it lasted.”
“Fun while it lasted?”
I scoop up my dildo. “Good night then, Nash. Pleasant dreams.”
I wait until I’m in my room to slide down the back of my door and cry. What have I done? How could I be so stupid? The one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t ever be again is vulnerable, and I don’t know how to rebuild the walls.
––––––––
TWO WEEKS LATER, I’Msitting at the end of the bar with Stella and her best friend, Perry. We are at the sip portion of our Paint and Sip that Ironwing hosted tonight. Okay, something I hosted through Ironwing at the annoyance of my business partner, who is annoyed by everything lately, so I guess it’s not a problem.
Perry nudges me. “You better get down there,” she points to the other end of the bar, “it looks like that chick is making a play for your man.”
Sure enough, the pretty woman flips her hair, a move I’ve seen done better by about 85 percent of my sorority sisters. She is pretty, though. I wonder if he likes her.
The idea of it shoots straight to my stomach and burns, but I take a very ladylike sip of my wine. “He’s not my man. He’s my business partner.” I meant to sound professional, but I think it squeaked out of me.
Perry snorts. “Whatever.” Perry is an interesting woman. She’s one of three lawyers in town. She’s gorgeous. Intelligent. And mostly mean.
She’s nice to me. And mostly nice to her friends. But she’s vicious when she wants to be and I think everyone is afraid of her. She’s the exact opposite of Stella, who is concentrating on the tarot cards in front of her.
“What did you draw? The King of Spades or something?” Perry asks her.
Stella shakes her head. “No. There is no King of Spades in the tarot deck.” She pushes a card around so it’s facing Perry. “This is the Tower. I have pulled it a couple days in a row. I can’t figure it out.”
“Well, your card isn’t going anywhere, but Nash might be,” Perry says. “He’s getting snared by a tourist.”
“What?” Stella asks, looking up, her eyes sharp on the woman. “Who is that?”
“Nobody knows. But the poet here claims she isn’t concerned.”
“I’m not concerned. He can flirt with whoever he wants.”
Stella and Perry exchange looks. “Yeah, we’ve been wanting to talk to you about that. When are you two going to get together? The guys at the firehall have extended their pool to include the rest of us townies, and I feel like you two owe me inside information.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, indulging the wish for just a second, and then remember that’s not what I want. It’s probably just that he got me interested in sex and now I’m not having any.
“Stella, we aren’t going to get together. Nash and I are much better as friends, and neither of us want a relationship. Especially with each other.”
“Fine, maybe I’ll go out with him then,” Perry says easily, watching me gleefully like I’m a bomb about to detonate. When I don’t satisfy her lust for drama, she leans forward, propping her hands on her chin and bats her eyelashes at Nash.
The face he makes looks like indigestion, and he turns his back to us, still talking to the tourist.
“I think I might be the only one of my friends who hasn’t slept with him yet,” she says, not even upset that he’s ignoring her.
“Gross!” Stella says. “I haven’t slept with him. In fact, who are you even talking about? He’s never...oh,” she pauses at the look on Perry’s face. “I was supposed to play along with that, wasn’t I?”
“Really, both of you can stop. We have acknowledged that there is an attraction between us...” A mind-numbing attraction. “...but have decided to stay professional.” I look over and see he’s got the woman’s phone in his hands. Is he giving her his phone number? In front of me? Really?
What a fool I’ve been. I just assumed that he would have the courtesy to not rub it in my face that he was already moving on. I thought...it doesn’t matter what I thought.
“It’s different for men, isn’t it?” I ask rhetorically but hoping someone has an answer.
“I’m so sorry,” Stella says, as we all watch Nash watch in appreciation as the woman who got his number sashays to the door, looking over her shoulder once to execute another hair flip.
“God, that move should be outlawed,” Perry says. “It’s so cliché.”
