Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(12)

He grabbed my hand, as though to preemptively keep me from fleeing. “All right. Enough is enough. I can’t believe I’m going to ask this—you know my feelings on the sacredness of Vegas—but you have got to tell me what happened between you and Dan at Janie’s bachelorette party.”

I winced. “You don’t want to know.”

“Did he take the hot dog bus to taco town?”

“What?”

“The sex, Kat.” Steven rolled his eyes. “Did you have the sex with Dan the Security Man?”

“No. No, much worse.” My words were anguished, because the memory tormented me.

“In my imagination, literally everything is worse than having the sex with delicious Dan,”—Steven pushed my shoulder—“so you’re going to have to be more specific and tell me what happened.”

“Does this place have any cheese?” I craned my neck, searching for the fridge.

“No cheese until you tell me what happened.”

“Just once I would like to be the person that wanted to go exercise when they had a bad day, and not eat a block of cheese for dinner.”

“And I want Hugh Jackman’s body.”

“You could if you lifted weights.”

“No. You misunderstand. I don’t want to look like Hugh Jackman. I want his body.” Steven gave me an unapologetic shrug, and that plus his cheeky words made me laugh.

“Good, a smile.” He patted my leg. “Now tell me what happened in Vegas, ’cause it obviously didn’t stay there.”

“Fine.” I tugged my hand from his, suddenly too exhausted to dodge his questions. “I was drunk. If you recall, Sandra spiked our drinks that night, she misunderstood or didn’t realize it was absinthe. I don’t remember much after that until I woke up in bed next to Dan the next morning. I was in my underwear and so was he.”

“Oh! Do go on.” Steven leaned in.

“I assumed we’d slept together.” I peeked at my friend. “And that made me so very, very sad.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I didn’t remember it. I’d promised myself that those days—of getting drunk or high or waking up next to someone, not remembering much from the night before—were behind me.”

Steven’s look of confusion dissolved into one of patient understanding.

I’d told Steven about my teen years, about how I’d tried to “live life to the fullest,” or what the world plus my fifteen-year-old brain told me living life to the fullest meant. Convinced I’d eventually become my mother, I wanted to spend what limited time I had left doing everything, feeling everything, experiencing everything. And when I was too shy to try things on my own, I’d turned to the inhibition-loosening powers of alcohol and drugs.

But by seventeen, I was so tired. Tired, dissatisfied, remorseful, and miserable.

We traded stares for a few seconds, and then Steven gently nudged my knee. “So what happened next?”

I glanced at my hands, at the pale pink polish I’d applied last night. It hadn’t yet begun to chip. “Since I assumed we’d slept together, I told Dan to,”—I glanced around the apartment, not able to meet my friend’s eye as I continued on a rush—“I told him to look for the condom because I didn’t usually remember using one, and I wanted to make sure we had. He asked me something about what I meant by ‘usually.’ And then I basically admitted that I’d had a bunch of drunken one-night stands.”

“And what did he do?”

I rolled my eyes at myself, because the memory still stung. “He couldn’t get out of the room fast enough, but not before he told me nothing happened between us. That I’d puked, and he’d stayed to make sure I was okay. But that nothing had happened.”

“So why were you in your underwear? Why didn’t he leave you in your clothes?”

“The dress I’d been wearing smelled like smoke and vomit. I assume he removed it because of the smell.”

“Hmm. I guess that makes sense.”

“So, that’s it.” I glanced at my friend and found him frowning thoughtfully. “Can we get back to the problem at hand? I can’t believe I’m asking this, but what do you think about Charles? The doorman. He seems nice.”

“Charles?” Steven’s expression told me he was either confused or constipated. “I’m not finished talking about Vegas, because that doesn’t seem like Dan. I’ve never known him to be judgmental. Generous? Yes. Adorable? Bossy? High-handed? Loyal? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Judgmental? No.”

“It was more like,”—I shook my head, struggling to find the words—“he was disappointed. Like he’d expected me to be one way. Who I actually was, who I am, disappointed him.”