Chapter 13 #3
“Good. I’m glad to see you aren’t pining over Peter. He had such a slimy vibe. Like, the way he looked at women was . . .” she shudders.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Honestly, maybe if she’d said something sooner, it could have saved me a whole lot of heartache.
“He was hardly ever around,” she says. “You came out with us all the time, but it was always just the girls. Even when Josh came with Lauren, you hardly ever brought Peter.” She drops a few dresses onto the huge ottoman that takes up the middle of the room.
“So I wasn’t entirely sure my assessment was right.
Did I have enough exposure to him to really know? ”
“Petra, you pride yourself on being able to sense these types of things. And you’re always right.”
She drops her voice low when she says, “Well, I wasn’t sure you’d be open to hearing it.”
Would I have? I ignored warning signs that I shouldn’t have. Would one of my best friends telling me my fiancé seemed a bit slimy have changed my mind? Or just strained the friendship?
“Did Jackson and Lauren feel the same way?” I sip my wine but watch her closely. Have they talked about me behind my back?
Petra turns to sort through more clothes, and I have to wonder if it’s so I can’t see her face when she responds.
“I don’t know. We never really talked about it.
My guess is that they also had reservations.
You’d have to ask them, though.” She turns back with another set of dresses.
“Okay, let’s look through these. I picked out some more formal options for the wedding, and these are just for fun. For dinner and going out at night.”
We look through the options and weed a couple out.
Petra’s got about the same size breasts and waist as I do, but I’m also curvy through the hips and thighs where she’s less so.
Once we’ve narrowed it down, I start trying dresses on.
Petra takes photos of my two favorites for the ceremony and I text them to my sister for her opinion.
Then I try on a bunch of fun dresses, all some combination of short, low-cut, and sexy.
I pull my three favorites aside, even though I’ll likely only have an occasion to wear two of them.
I’m not sure why it even matters what I wear, since it’s not like I’m bringing a date I’m trying to impress.
I’ll probably spend the whole weekend feeling like the fifth wheel.
“What’s that look?” Petra asks and when I glance up, I realize she’s studying me carefully from where I sit, organizing the pile of dresses so I can easily bring them home.
“It’s nothing.”
“Sure it’s not. What’s going on?” she asks as she sits down on the ottoman, her knees turned toward me and her assessing eyes focused on my face.
“Really, nothing’s going on. I was just thinking about not having a date to bring to the wedding and how I’m probably going to feel like the odd man out all weekend since I’ll be with two other couples.”
Petra nods, and I feel like I can see the wheels turning in her mind.
I know Petra wouldn’t care at all about something like this.
She’d see it as an opportunity to meet a new man and “take him for a test drive,” as she often refers to her sexual encounters.
I wish I had her confidence and her healthy appetite for sex with strangers, I really do.
It would make my love life a lot less complicated.
But I just can’t, mentally or emotionally, get there.
“There’s no one you’d want to bring?”
I school my face into a mask of indifference, because if anyone would be able to see through me about this, it’s Petra. “I just broke off an engagement and I’ve had one horrendous date since. Who would I bring?”
Bring Beau, that little voice yells at me.
It’s ridiculous how much I want him there with me.
I know he’s the kind of guy who’d make sure I had a good time all weekend.
But even though we live together, there’s no way I can bring him to this wedding and claim we’re just friends.
It’s Vegas. If there were anywhere in the whole world you’d go with the expectation of getting lucky, that’s it.
There’s no way I can invite Beau without him thinking it’s an invitation straight into my panties.
So let it be. I shake my head to get rid of that voice, which usually is so good at reminding me to always make good decisions but has suddenly jumped on the just sleep with Beau and enjoy it bandwagon.
“I wish I could hear the conversation going on in your head right now,” Petra says with a laugh. “If your facial expressions are any indication, it’s a doozy.”
“I’m kind of a mess right now.” I rest my elbows on my knees and let my head fall into my hands.
“Tell me about it,” Petra says. When I don’t respond, she adds, “I’m a really good listener. And I can keep a secret. It seems like you might need someone to listen to you without judging, and without sharing your thoughts with anyone else.”
I consider this for a moment. Petra knows Jackson well enough to give me advice on this in a way that Sydney can’t. I take a deep breath, then explain what’s been going on.
Petra’s quiet when I’m done, and I instantly regret telling her.
“I’m just thinking,” she says as she gets up and starts pacing back and forth across her closet.
Finally, she says, “On the one hand, he is your best friend’s little brother.
And you don’t know how she’d feel about you sleeping with him.
” She walks to the other side of the room.
“But on the other hand, you’re both adults and there’s no harm in a short-term fling if you both enter it knowing that it’s only going to be a short-term thing.
” She walks back to the ottoman and sits next to me. “I think you should go for it.”
“Wait . . . what?” Did she really just tell me to sleep with Beau?
“I saw you two together at Jackson’s wedding.
There was so much chemistry there. And it sounds like that’s only grown since you’ve been roommates.
As long as you aren’t going to be heartbroken when he leaves—because we do know that he’ll leave—why wouldn’t you go for this?
I bet the sex would be amazing, and you deserve that. You should take him to Vegas with you.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. And I have no idea how I’d ask him something like that, anyway.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” she says. “And you could just say, ‘Hey, want to go to Vegas for the weekend?’ If he makes excuses and doesn’t come, you’ll know this wasn’t meant to be a thing. But if he does come, well, you’ll have a weekend full of great sex.”
“And then when we come back? He’ll still be my roommate for another week before he leaves.”
“You guys will figure it out. But I don’t see any reason you need to stop sleeping with him just because you’re not in Vegas anymore.”
“I feel like that’s the tricky part. I really do like him, and if the sex is good, I’m worried I’ll start developing feelings for him, and it’ll be heartbreaking when he leaves.
” It’s the same thing I said to Sydney a few nights ago, and I wonder if that will change Petra’s mind about it like it changed Sydney’s.
“You have to go into it knowing that it’s only temporary and being okay with that. If you’re not okay with it, then you probably need to keep your distance.” She reaches over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “There are plenty of fish in the sea.”
It’s a struggle not to roll my eyes. Yeah, maybe for gorgeous, confident, and uninhibited girls like Petra, there are plenty of fish in the sea.