The Wright Brother(35)
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Right? So, you have to call and convince Landon to bring Miranda here for Christmas. Do whatever you have to, all right? I mean…I can even call Emery or whatever and ask her to stay away from Landon if that helps…” Morgan trailed off when I said nothing. “Why have you gone pale.”
“Morg,” I said, meeting her worried gaze, “I fucked up.”
Fourteen
Emery
“And he just threw my clothes at me and then drove me home!” I recounted to Heidi over lunch.
“Bastard!” Heidi said on cue. “What a bastard!”
“Right? I mean…we had sex for hours last night, and then this morning, it was like a light switch had been flipped. Walking into this, I just knew it was a bad idea. He totally used me.”
“And it sucked, using him back, right?” Heidi asked, digging into her pad thai—our requisite best friend meal—at the downtown Thai Pepper.
“Dude, the sex was phenomenal,” I told her for the hundredth time. “The turning into a jerk in the morning and dumping me at Kimber’s, like a dorm-level walk of shame, not so much.”
I twirled my own extra-spicy pad thai noodles on my fork and dug in. I was famished after my late-night sexcapades. I’d only had two tacos, half of a bag of marshmallows, and some Hershey’s chocolate in the last eighteen hours, and I was starving.
“Yeah, well, at least you had some fun,” Heidi said. “That was good for you after Professor McJerkface.”
I snorted into my food and then hacked and coughed to clear my airway. “Professor McJerkface?”
Heidi shrugged and winked at me. “Pretty much.”
“Well, it was a good time. But, you know…it was more than that.” Thoughtfully, I set my fork down and sipped on my water. “I kind of like him.”
“A Wright brother?” Heidi asked with wide eyes. “Aren’t you President of the Anti-Wright Family Fan Club?”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “But he was different.”
“Oh, boy! Here it goes,” Heidi said.
“What?” I demanded.
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“You know,” Heidi said. “The whole the guy is a jerk, but he’s different with me. News flash, Robinson, he’s not different. He just wanted to fuck you.”
I flinched. “Thanks for that cheery message.”
“Gah, I’m sorry. I had a weird night, and I worry about you. What happened with Landon was bad enough.”
“You were the one pushing me into Jensen’s arms.”
“Yeah, but that was before you got all doe-eyed and decided he was different. I like Jensen just fine. He’s a great boss. He cares about his employees. He knows what he’s doing, and he makes us all a lot of money. But I can’t pretend that he’s this perfect person either. I’ve heard that he sleeps around when he’s at business meetings out of town.”
“Ugh! I don’t want to think about it. We’ve all done stupid things. I don’t want to judge him. Maybe he’s just a manwhore, and that’s what last night was about. But you should have warned me!”
“I thought you’d fuck around with him as a nice rebound, Em. I didn’t think it’d be anything.”
“Well, it’s not,” I said instantly. “It’s definitely not. Remember the whole dropped me off at Kim’s like he was taking out the trash? Because I’m pretty sure, no matter how different he was with me, that asshole sure shone through.”
“Good. That’s good. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
“I’m not going to get hurt. Now, what was this about a weird night?” I asked her.
She brushed her hand in front of her face and laughed. “Nothing honestly. I had a strange phone call, and I ended up talking to the person all night. It was unexpected.”
My eyebrows rose in question, but Heidi was already moving on to another topic.
“Do you want to go shopping with me and Julia sometime this week?”
“Two weeks before Christmas. Your favorite time to shop.”
“All the crowds and sales and screaming—it makes for a great horror flick.”
“Sure, I’m in. I can never resist a good bit of horror.”
Right then, my phone pinged noisily.
“Fuck,” I groaned, digging it out of my pocket.
I’d forgotten to turn the ringer off this morning. I’d taken a good long shower and an even longer nap once I got home and left the ringer on, so I could get Heidi’s text when she got out of her morning meeting.