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I grabbed my water bottle off the floor and sipped it. “Anyway…explain…”
My best friend stomped toward her bedroom, grabbing another sheet, calling over her shoulder, “He yelled over the fence, asking me to please becourteousof the other neighbors and cover up.”
I choked on my water, wiping at my face while I trailed behind her. “Were you naked?”
She shook the sheet out. “Of course not, I was wearing a robe. It was just a little short, and I didn’t realize he was out when I bent over to check my new garden.”
“You inherited a garden?” My eyes were huge because Nora loved gardening but was terrible at starting them.
Repeating what she’d done in the living room, I moved to support her as she began pinning the sheet over the window. “I did, and it’s so cute. I’m terrified of killing it, so I have been checking it at all intervals of the day.”
“So, what did you do—I mean, when he said that?” I softened my tone, hating that this jerk had already seemed to shake my bestie. It was enough that he’d already crushed her; he could be nice. It wouldn’t kill the idiot.
With a big sigh, Nora blew a rogue curl out of her face. “I just stood up, turned to look at him and said, ‘Maybe you can work on keeping your eyes on your side of the fence, and I’ll work on wearing pants,’ then I sauntered inside, shaking my ass with every step.”
My head tipped back as a cackle erupted from my chest. “You did not say that!”
“I did, and I’d say it again if I were brave enough to go in the backyard again, which I am not.”
This wouldn’t do. “Nora, you can’t give up your beautiful backyard, especially with your new garden.”
“I haven’t given it up. I just time it so I go back there when he leaves for work. I don’t know if he lives with anyone, but so far no one else has come out and harassed me.”
“Are we going to talk about how you know when he leaves for work already?”
Her blue eyes narrowed as her nose flared. “Are we going to talk about what happened between you and Davis?”
I spun on my heel. “Nope, let’s figure out dinner.”
“Come on, Rae!” She chased after me. “You disappeared all weekend, then came back and wouldn’t smile or talk for like two weeks. Now there’s no word of him?”
When I dipped down to grab my purse, she placed her hands over mine, stopping my trajectory.
“Come on, Rae, talk to me.”
I knew she was right, but it didn’t change that I didn’t want to talk about it. My feelings after I left Davis’s house were locked up inside me, and that’s where I wanted them to stay, so I could hold the memories forever and never have to let them go. But Nora was my best friend, and she’d gone through all of it with me. It wouldn’t be fair to pull out now.
Deflating, I dropped my purse. “We need vodka, and a comfortable place to sit.”
Nora ran toward the kitchen on bare feet. “On it!”
* * *
I explained the whole weekend,leaving out the filthy sex parts. The gas fireplace illuminated the sparse living room as Nora faced me with her feet out, cradling the bottle of vodka in her lap.
“So, he knows,” she hiccuped, “but he doesn’t know.”
I nodded. That was the extent of it. He knew about me…but he had no idea I wasthatgirl who used to leave him notes in his library books and walked over to him while he gassed up his bike and tried to tell him my name.
“But I’m confused…” She tilted her head, letting her curls fall off her shoulder. “Why would he go looking for you now?”
That was something I hadn’t entirely worked out yet. “From what I can gather, I think it was guilt.”
“But guilt over what?”
Leaning forward to grab the bottle from her, I took a large swig. “The note he left me, I’m assuming, telling me to meet him there.”
Saying it all out loud felt like tiny pricks from a needle, jabbing at my heart. Reminding me how stupid I was to fall into bed with the man who’d so thoughtlessly hurt me.
