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“All right there, Romeo. Mind if I steal my girl back?”
My best friend, Casey, sidles up to us and expertly maneuvers me out of his grasp. My drunken partner of choice for the evening mutters his disappointment.
“Thanks, Case.” I incline my head and rest it on top of hers; an easy feat, considering I’m five inches taller even without heels.
“Please… as if he stood a chance, anyway. You always go for the weird ones, Ro…” She trails off.
Ever since Gareth.
That’s what she’s thinking. I know it. Ever since Gareth, my childhood sweetheart, spectacularly dumped me days after I gave him my V-card, and my life turned to shit. I wanted to wait until we were married. Call me naïve or old-fashioned or whatever. But the old me used to believe in true love and soulmates.
The old me.
I snort and lose my balance, wobbling as the night’s cocktails swirl around in my stomach and cause my head to spin like I’m on a ride at Staten Island Fair.
Casey tightens her grip on my waist as we exit the club, and the night air of New York hits me like a slap in the face, making my stomach roll again.
A girl stands shivering, arguing with the bouncer about going back inside to find her purse to get a cab home. I don’t wait to hear his excuse about why she can’t go back in. I pull a twenty from my purse and press it into her hands.
“Always get home safe. That’s what my dad used to say,” I slur.
“Thanks.” She smiles as I bat her words away with a swipe of a drunken flailing hand.
“It’s nothing.”
I lean into Casey’s side as she pulls me away further down the sidewalk.
“You’re too nice, Ro.” She sighs as she scans the street.
“You and I both know that’s not true.” I clasp a hand over my mouth as I belch, and my neck burns.
Casey blows out a breath, probably too tired to argue with me. We’ve had this conversation before.
Many times.
“Looks like our ride home just found us.”
I follow her gaze to the blue sedan pulled up by the curb. Brett glares at me from the driver’s side. I lift one hand and wiggle my fingers in a wave, attempting to curl my lips into a semblance of a smile, instead of the grimace that has settled there.
“He shouldn’t be here,” I mutter.
He winds down the window and calls to us. Casey answers for me as a fresh wave hits me, forcing me to bend over at the waist and hurl the night’s liquid courage all over the sidewalk. She rubs my back with one hand, gathering back my hair with the other.
I groan and straighten up, wiping the back of my hand across my lips, and look over at Brett through bleary eyes.
“Hey, big brother.” I grimace.
He looks at Casey, then back at me, his mouth flattened into a grim line.
“Get her in the car, Case. It’s time Rose went home.”
I roll my eyes, which makes my head pound.
“Come on, Case,” I whisper. “Time I went back to serve my sentence.”
After dropping Casey off, and me drunkenly whispering—which was more like slurred shouting—about how I didn’t want her to leave me, and then trying to cling on to her as she exited the car, Brett drives me the rest of the way home in silence.
Stone-cold silence.
