Chapter 10
10
"I let you hover over me while I peed on a stick and you don’t tell me this ?"
Jo side-eyed Mags sitting next to her at the bistro-sized round table they’d snagged at Lavertys, then let her gaze roam around the crowded bar and dance floor. If Faith hadn’t gotten there early, they’d probably be standing in a corner somewhere.
And this was why they usually didn’t come on a Friday night.
"So, let me get this straight," Colleen hollered, leaning toward Jo from across the table and snagging her attention. "You had sex in the back of a truck last Sunday night with a stranger who ended up being the Dr. Henry Lawton."
Wow, that sounds bad.
"And then," Faith, sitting on Jo’s other side, said just as loudly, "after you found out who he was, you almost had sex with him again ."
"In the janitor’s closet," Mags added. "You can’t leave the janitor’s closet part out. I still can’t believe it."
And that sounds worse.
Why had she felt the need to share all of this?
Oh, yeah. Moral support.
"Can we forget about the janitor’s closet for a second?" Jo said over the music.
"No," her friends said in unison, after which Colleen finished with, "It’s kinda hard to forget something like that."
"Guys," Jo said, lifting her hands in an attempt to get them to stop, "this is not why I called this meeting."
"You know, if we’re actually going to be a group with meetings and such, I think we need a name." All Colleen did was smile at Jo’s glare and sigh of exasperation as she dropped her hands. "Oh," the other woman exclaimed, as she bounced up and down in her seat with distinct excitement. "I’ve got it. We’ll be the PRCs."
"And what, pray tell," Mags said, setting her glass of ginger ale down, "does PRC stand for?"
"Get this," she said, lifting her own hands out in front of her, dramatically saying, "Parson’s Ridge Cougars," as she spread them apart. Colleen’s matter of fact answer came with a gleam of anticipation filling her gaze, while Jo and Mags groaned. "Our motto could be, rawr." She said the last using her uplifted hands to claw at the air.
"No," Mags said first.
"Not just no," Jo added. "But hell no."
"You guys are no fun."
"I kinda liked it," Faith said, while Colleen grabbed her drink. "But don’t we have to be dating a younger man to be a cougar?"
"Two down," Colleen said, lifting her half-finished sour apple martini and using it to toast toward Mags then Jo. "Two to go." She finished that by downing the rest of her drink.
"We’re losing focus on the topic at hand," Jo said, her gaze going to each of her friends. "What should I do?"
"What do you want to do?" Mags said, like that was an easy thing to answer. "That’s the true question."
"No," Jo said, shaking her head. "What I want isn’t important." And she truly believed that.
"Since when?" Colleen asked, her brow crinkled as she crossed her arms and gave Jo a good hard stare. "What you want should always be important."
"But it can’t be," she argued. "I have Collin, and?—"
"Stop," Faith snapped out, surprising her into silence, and probably shocking the others at the table. Faith didn’t snap. At anyone. "Okay, I get why you stayed away from relationships while Collin was growing up. You didn’t want to bring confusion into his life. And that was pretty daggon noble of you if you ask me." To use daggon , Faith was pretty serious, because that was as close to cursing as she ever got. "But Collin’s not that little kid anymore. He’s what, fifteen, right?" Jo nodded, completely transfixed. She’d known Faith for a couple of years and she’d never seen her so het up. "So, I bet if you asked him, he’d agree you need to start thinking more of your own happiness. You deserve it."
"How many drinks have you had," Mags asked, laughing, while a deep blush spread up Faith’s cheeks.
"Just the one."
"You should?—"
"Everything good here, ladies?" Josh Laverty pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave them a smile that could probably melt all the panties, and probably some boxers too, in the whole room. "Does anyone need another drink?"
"Sour apple martini, please," Colleen said, raising her empty glass. "And tell Jake his are the best I’ve ever drank."
"I’ll do that," he said, his smile growing while eyeing the rest of them. "Anyone else?"
Jo and Mags shook their heads, while Faith answered with, "Another gin and tonic for me," before drinking down the last contents from her glass.
"I don’t know if you should have anymore," Mags said, her sly and humor-filled eyes flashing toward Jo, then she winked before focusing back on their other friend. "They make you a little feisty."
"All the more reason," Colleen added, chuckling. "I like this side of you."
"I’ll have someone right over with your drinks," Josh said, his voice holding more than a hint of laughter.
"He is so nice," Faith said, her eyes following after him.
"And single," Colleen added. "And handsome." She waggled her brows. " And a younger man. Rawr."
Of course she did an air-claw again.
I’ve completely lost control of the situation.
"Yeah," Mags said, kind of distractedly, her eyes flashing toward where he’d disappeared into the crowd. "But from what I’ve heard, you’d have to take on all three of them." Her confused, though slightly intrigued, gaze met Jo’s. "At the same time."
"Hmm…" Colleen’s speculative stare went toward where the bar was located. "That’d be a whole lot of d?—"
"Uh-oh," Faith cut in, peering past Jo’s head. "Someone’s headed this way."
"Who?" Mag’s asked, looking the same way, her eyes going wide. "Uh-oh is right."
"Oh boy," Colleen muttered, as Jo was about to turn in her seat.
"What are you guys?—"
"Hello, Jo."