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I take a deep gasping breath and then lift my chin. “Anyway, I just want to say happy anniversary, and if you ever mess with my Rob again, I’ll come after you in ways that are totally legal yet will ruin your life. I have an Amazon account, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
With a pat on the shoulder of the woman behind me, I start to walk toward the ladies’ room. Jillian and Melissa are in the vestibule, Jillian with my purse and Melissa with her phone in her hand.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask them.
“I’m here to tell you we’re leaving,” Jillian states as if it’s obvious.
“And I’m calling Will to make sure you don’t get arrested for harassment,” Melissa says with her phone to her ear.
Jillian places her hand on my back and ushers me out of the restaurant.
“Where are we going?” I ask them as we walk toward Jillian’s car in the parking lot.
“Back to Melissa’s house to celebrate,” Jillian says, and I raise a brow at her.
When we’re all in the car, we close the doors, and it’s dangerously silent. That is, until the two burst into a fit of laughter so loud and vibrant that the car shakes.
“That was the coolest thing we’ve ever seen!”
“Girl, Will is gonna die when I tell him what you said to his ex-sister-in-law!”
Even I join in, the rush of adrenaline from the moment now coursing through my body. “My heart is beating so fast.” I place my hand on my heart. “I guess I was more nervous than I thought I’d be, saying that to Christine.”
“Nope. That wasn’t Christine that’s making your heart race,” Melissa says as Jillian backs out of the parking space. She turns around and smiles. “You pretty much just admitted to everyone that you’re in love with Rob.”
“Wow. Maybe I am.” My teeth rub against my lower lip as I look up at the sky that’s now dark, and my moon is there, hiding behind a cloud. It’s kind of like love. You can hide it, run away from it even, but if it’s there … it’s there. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad do you think he’s gonna be at that scene I caused?”
The two of them look at one another in the front seat, smile, and nod.
“Zero!” they say in unison and Melissa adds, “You just told a restaurant full of people that he has a big dick!”
I fall back in my seat. “And I’m the one who gets called out for being childish.”
Great, I’m in love with Rob. Why doesn’t it feel right? He’s mad, but I know this could be resolved if it really mattered. No, there’s a gnawing in my gut that’s telling me something else.
Telling me that I could love Rob all I want.
Problem is, he won’t ever love me back.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Rob
Bourbon. A barrel-aged American whiskey. It has a burn that lingers in your throat. Some say it has a red pepper taste. I think it’s like a baking spice—sweet and spicy from new, charred oak barrels that release flavors of caramel and vanilla.
Bourbon is a type of whiskey, like the way champagne is a type of wine. All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
Just like all girls are women, but no other woman is like Tara Parsons.
I kick one of the chairs across the porch. My life was just fine until that woman walked into my house with her catlike dark blue eyes, raven-colored hair, and the sweetest fucking mouth I’d ever seen. Everything about her had the spice of bourbon. From the intoxicating way her lips tempted me to kiss her with every foul-mouthed word that came out of her mouth, to the sweet way she acted with my daughter, to how she moved that body with the vicious sway of her hips, to her too-short dresses that I knew she wore just to tempt me.
The woman complained that I was hard to deal with when it came to my mood swings. But she’s the definition of all over the place. An accountant who does paperwork in her room while wearing these sexy glasses and runs through spreadsheets like a savant, but she doesn’t know how to keep a room clean. She loves to bake because it has precise measurements. She makes the most delicious baked goods, but can’t cook a steak because it’s impossible to know if it is still pink inside. She is a beautiful, smart, funny woman who often acts like a child and doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong.
The chair I kicked across the porch is on its side. I set it right and take a seat in it. My glass is in my hand, yet I’m not drinking it. I should. It’s dependable. No matter how fucked my day is, I can always come back home to the feeling of a glass in my hand, the familiar taste of the bourbon rolling over my tongue, and that burn that eases down my throat.
That’s why I like bourbon.
Good old dependable bourbon.
