“Hyena,” Riley corrected before he could stop himself.
Trisha shrieked in rage and slammed the door behind her on her way out. All Riley could do was pour himself a scotch and laugh about the crazy night he’d just had.
Chapter 9
Riley frowned at the knock on the door. It was Ben. Had to be. Saturday morning before noon, it would only be Ben. Riley got up from where he’d passed out on the couch and groaned. No hangover today, at least, but he wished he had one. Anything to get Trisha and the memory of her pawing hands out of his head.
He opened the door and glared.
“What?” Ben asked, lips twitching in a smile. “How did last night go?”
“How did it go? I’ll tell you how it went. It went so well that I think from now on, you should just act like me and find the wife and then I’ll just show up and marry her,” he yelled as he threw his arms up in the air and headed to the kitchen. “That’s how great my freaking night was, Benjamin.”
“Ouch, full name,” he said as he closed the door and followed his friend.
Riley ground the coffee beans and started them brewing before he turned back to see Ben still smiling. “Wipe that grin off your face, I’m serious.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me there wasn’t at least one good thing about last night?”
He was about to say no, but another face popped into his mind. A beautiful face surrounded by auburn hair, soaked in rain water, right before she’d turned and bolted. “There was another girl…but…she ran off.”
His friend stared at him, wide-eyed, then laid his hands flat on the counter. “Wait, let me get this straight. So you go on a date, the lady turns out to be psycho, but you randomly meet some other girl who, from the look on your face was pretty special, and you let her run off? I thought the driver said someone came home with you?”
“Yeah, crazy Trisha.”
Ben whispered something and started to turn away until Riley admitted that she laughed like a hyena. A greedy, selfish, horny hyena. It was almost thirty minutes later when Ben finally stopped laughing and told Riley he’d try to be more selective about his future mates.
“Mates? We’re calling them mates now?”
“Future trophy wife? I don’t know, man, what do you want me to call them?”
Riley didn’t know. He really didn’t want to do this anymore, but if he didn’t, Diane won. Or worse, he’d have to suck it up and marry her instead. The girl…he needed to track down that girl. He had no idea how he could do it or if it was even possible. Somehow, he’d find her.
***
Phoebe was at the hospital, visiting her mother, who was still unconscious, when Charlotte knocked on the door. “Hey, how did your date go last night?”
“We need to talk outside,” Phoebe snapped and dragged her friend out of the room. “What the hell did you get me involved in? Last night was horrible! Freaking horrible! He blurted out that I obviously needed money because apparently everyone can tell I’m poor. He asked for sex in return—or at least I think that’s what he asked for, but I don’t know ‘cause I ran, broke my only good pair of heels, then was half-saved by this other guy who looked like a pirate, but then I freaked and ran home in the rain—alone!” Her chest heaved from spitting everything out at once.
Charlotte stared at her like she’d lost her head. “Wait, just…what?”
“You didn’t catch any of that?”
“Pirate. I distinctly heard something about a pirate.”
Phoebe groaned and shook her head. “I don’t think I can go out on any more dates with people from that website. I tried, I failed, end of story.”
“No,” Charlotte said, “you are not giving up that easily. I won’t let you.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Grill each guy through e-mail before the date to make sure he’s not going to ask me for sex?”
Several nurses walking by stopped and looked at her funny, but she ignored them. Let them look. Nothing could be worse than what happened last night in the restaurant. There was an e-mail from Mitch sitting on her computer, but she hadn’t opened it yet. Not sure she should, really. The guy had freaked her out on more than one level, and the last thing she wanted to deal with was some vicious rant by a bastard.
“Look, I’m off duty in about two hours. I’ll swing by and we’ll talk about it, all right?”