“Pour me one too please,” she says as she thrusts her glass in my face. She is dressed to kill in a red strapless dress that is skintight and shows way too much leg. She is wearing matching red sandals with a two-inch heel and a strap around the ankle.
“You look hot. Whose pants are you trying to get into tonight?” I ask as I’m walking out of the kitchen and back into the living room to wake Katelyn up who fell asleep twenty minutes into the movie.
“No one in particular. Now will you two lazy bums get up and get dressed? I’m going over to Ben and Kyle’s. Come get us when you’re ready to leave,” she says in a Stacy-like fashion.
Pouncing on Katelyn, I say, “Time to get up. I’m going to use Stacy’s bathroom. Be ready in forty.”
She grabs a throw pillow and covers her head. “It’s only 6:05 p.m., can’t I have another hour?” she asks.
“No, you can’t,” I say as I stand and steal the pillow from her. As I’m walking to Stacy’s room, I toss the pillow into a chair.
“You suck.” I hear her say as I’m walking down the hall.
* * * * *
An hour later I’m sitting on a bar stool in Ben and Kyle’s apartment, drinking yet another glass of wine while waiting on Katelyn to emerge from her apartment. Ben peeks his head out the front door of his apartment. “She’s finally ready. Let’s roll.” He’s since shaved off the hideous mustache. Apparently, enough people ragged on him about it at the gym.
We make our way down the stairs and into the parking lot; we all pile in Ben’s blue Ford Explorer. Ben is in the driver’s seat. Kyle is seated in the passenger’s seat, and my two girlfriends and I are in the back. Ben starts the ignition and Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold” is playing. Kyle quickly switches the station to 95.5 KLOS. He and I have the same taste in music, and like me, he hates pop…aka, shitty music. Ben, on the other hand, doesn’t know what genre he likes. It’s different every damn month. Apparently, he’s into pop right now.
“Dude, stop touching my fucking radio,” Ben huffs out, but doesn’t turn it back; Kyle doesn’t respond. He knows if he makes a smart-ass remark, then Ben will force him to listen to pop music for the remainder of the drive. He’s not stupid.
Once we arrive at Charro’s Ben whips the SUV into the only free space available. We’ve made it just in time. Otherwise, we would be finding another restaurant tonight. There is no way I would be walking the half-mile back to this popular eatery.
When we get out of the SUV, I smooth out my dress I borrowed Stacy’s two-inch, white sandals with a strap around the ankle. We may not share clothes, but we are the same foot size and raid each other’s shoe closet all the time.
I order a ground-beef taco salad with extra cheese sauce and a margarita on the rocks. You can’t eat Mexican food without a margarita, and my friends share the same philosophy as we all order the same drink.
“So, Shannon,” Kyle starts. “Has the douchebag tried to get you back yet?” All heads turn in my direction, waiting for a response.
“Yeah,” I sigh out, wondering if I should divulge everything that’s happened over the last few days. The last two people I want to think about, let alone talk about, are Luke and Allison, but then what kind of friend would I be if I kept them all in the dark? A pretty shitty friend, probably.
“Well?” Ben draws out in a long breath. I guess the conversation with myself in my head was a lot longer than I thought.
“Well…um…” I hesitate, searching for the right words to say. “Luke came by work yesterday, caused a small scene and then showed up drunk last night at the hotel.” I leave out the even bigger scene he caused last night. I still can’t wrap my head around what he did. “He caught me before my meeting this morning and tried to apologize for his behavior,” I finish, thinking I’ve told them plenty.
“Why did you just hesitate like you didn’t want to tell us? Did the shithead do anything?” Stacy questions. Yes, he did, but I don’t want to think about that now, let alone discuss it. Surely, they get that.
“I wasn’t, and guys, I really just want to forget about him and never have to deal with him again,” I say, taking a large sip of Margarita through my straw.
For the next two hours, we eat, drink, laugh and call each other on our bullshit. It’s already a fun night; I need this, along with the alcohol to take my mind off Nick. My friends may think I need a distraction from Luke and former best friend, but the truth is, I need to forget about the best sex I’ve ever had with a man I don’t even know.