Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Thirteenth encounter
“Did you have a bad day?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You look unhappy.” One side of his mouth lifted in amusement. “Even though I’m here and half-naked.”
She laughed. “One orgasm from you can’t solve all my problems.”
“Ah,” he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind, his chest against her back, his mouth on her cheek, her neck.
She sighed, licked her lips, and drained her glass of wine. “But it can’t hurt, I guess.”
Lucas chuckled softly, turned her over, and cupped her face to kiss her properly…and she forgot why her day had been so awful.
Iwouldn’t want to be a hockey player,” Maddie said, finishing her tequila sunrise. “Not being able to drink during the season would drive me crazy.”
Anna nodded. “Dax didn’t even eat sugar when the NHL scouts were checking out college games.”
“It’s kind of like the Hawks are all pregnant,” Lucy agreed. “They have to go without for nine months, and at the end, they’re still exhausted and have to endure a lot of screaming.”
“That’s such an accurate summary, I’m surprised no one has said it before!
” Penny said, laughing. “Their hormonal fluctuations are even worse during the season. Jack got sentimental yesterday when I swatted a mosquito because he thought he knew how it felt. She had traveled such a long, arduous way to reach her goal. And then, just before she fulfills her dream, I come along!”
Anna laughed. “I thought you were a vegetarian who couldn’t harm any animal?”
“Mosquitoes are the most dangerous animals in the world,” Penny said, pointing her cocktail umbrella at them all. “They kill over 700,000 people a year. I have no sympathy for them.”
“Oh yeah. Mosquitoes and spiders,” Maddie said.
Penny sucked in a sharp breath. “No! You’re not allowed to touch spiders. We need them for our ecosystem.”
“Well, my ecosystem needs another cocktail,” Lucy stated, nodding to a passing waiter. “Maddie and Anna too, right?”
“Oh yeah.” Anna sighed as they all ordered new drinks from the waiter. “Hockey players are exhausting. I need tonight before I have to spend fifteen hours a day with them at the away games next week.”
Penny smiled broadly. “You have two hockey brothers. You must have realized that they and their excessive testosterone are exhausting.”
“I knew they all had more ego problems and fewer teeth than the average person, but Jack and Dax at least used to let me fix them. My biggest enemies right now aren’t injuries but the words: I’m fine.
I went to update Charkov’s tetanus shot yesterday, and he said: I’m fine.
I’m too strong, tetanus too weak. He’s just too damn scared of needles. ”
The women laughed, and Anna’s cheeks turned pink.
She loved that Lucy had texted her and invited her.
They were sitting at the Sunny Umbrella, Maddie and Lucy’s favorite bar right on Santa Monica Beach and a few doors down from Maddie’s Match Me!
dating agency. Anna had liked the bar immediately because you could dance up front or go out back to the spacious terrace where it was quiet.
Back there, you didn’t have to shout to hear each other.
It also offered a beautiful view of the sunset, which bathed the sky in spectacular shades of pink and orange.
She liked the company even more, though.
She’d never had many close friends. It was difficult to make friends at school when you weren’t brave enough to invite your classmates home.
It was even harder to maintain friendships when everyone went to some Ivy League college, which involved tuition Anna couldn’t ever have afforded even if she’d sold all her organs, even with the scholarship.
She had many friends from med school and the hospital, but medical students were categorically busy, and they’d never spent much time together outside work.
Besides, she’d always kept so many stupid secrets that she’d never been able to fully open up.
She’d always felt a little uncomfortable.
Penny, Lucy, and Maddie were such ridiculously warm people that she couldn’t help but relax in their presence.
“Oh, 20 to 30 percent of children and teenagers are afraid of needles,” Penny said casually.
“Charkov is 25. Can you still call that juvenile?”
“Leon is 23 and acts like a child. So…yes,” Lucy said, taking a long sip of her Long Island iced tea.
“Hm.” Penny narrowed her eyes. “In adults, only about 3 percent have belonophobia.”
“Belono…what?” Maddie asked, frowning.
“Fear of needles,” Anna translated.
Lucy snorted. “How do you know that word?”
“I’ve studied medicine, no idea what Penny’s excuse is.”
“I remember useless things and statistics,” she said with a sigh.
“It’s a gift and a curse. In the bathroom the other day, I calculated Leon’s odds of success with women.
Unfortunately, I now happen to know that around 82 percent of the women he ever hits on would go home with him.
Oh, also: Did you know that Spain has the most bars in the world? ”
Grinning broadly, Lucy saluted her. “Always nice to have you around, Penny. But, please, never tell Leon those odds because then he’ll be crushed by the weight of his oversized ego, and even our clever doctor Anna won’t be able to save him!”
“Oh, maybe he could be revived with a kiss from his true love,” Maddie remarked with a smile. “I’d find her for him, and if that worked, it would be the best advertising Match Me! ever had. Sleeping-beauty kisses are the best!”
“What?” Lucy looked at her sister, irritated. “Creepy kisses, where only one party is conscious, are the best?”
“They’re romantic,” Maddie protested.
“As romantic as an iron as a birthday present,” Lucy said incredulously. “The best kisses are wall kisses.”
Anna tilted her head. “What’s a wall kiss?”
“Well, those kisses where you’re pushed against a wall and then thoroughly smooched senseless,” she replied with a grin.
Ah, those. Yes, Anna liked those too.
“No. I like forehead kisses,” Penny interjected. “Forehead kisses are I love you kisses.”
Anna laughed. “No. Forehead kisses are I’m much taller than you and it’s too hard to reach your mouth kisses.”
Lucy snorted. “That’s so true!”
“Well, then you tell us what kind of kiss is best,” Maddie said, laughing.
“Hmm.” Anna frowned and thought of Lucas.
Obviously, she was thinking of him. She hadn’t been close to anyone else’s lips in a year.
He’d kissed her in a hundred places. In a hundred positions.
In a hundred ways. But what she liked best was…
“I like kisses that start with someone putting their arms around you from behind. When he can’t reach everything with his lips but tries anyway.
” She swallowed. “Until he turns you around to kiss you properly. Because he can’t wait any longer. ”
Maddie sighed, but Lucy looked at her knowingly. “Who kissed you like that — and is he hot?”
Anna’s cheeks turned decidedly warm. “No one has…”
“Oh, that means there is someone!” Penny concluded immediately. “Come on. You can tell us. Your annoying brothers aren’t here.”
She laughed nervously and was glad when Maddie changed course; she was looking toward the door and murmuring, “Oh, great. Mister Hot Arrogant and his henchman Mister Charming Innocent are here.”
They all turned and looked in the direction Maddie was looking.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Lucy’s sister murmured. But, instead of getting up, she just kept turning. She smiled sweetly at a tall, blond man in a suit who had just stepped onto the terrace. She raised her middle finger.
The man stopped and raised his eyebrows, but the man in a suit next to him, whose dark red hair bore a strong resemblance to Michael Fassbender, laughed loudly and patted his friend on the shoulder.
The first man sighed heavily before he turned his back on their group and headed for a table as far away from them as possible.
“You never have to apologize for middle fingers, Maddie,” Lucy said, laughing, while Anna craned her neck and decided the redhead must be Mr. Charming Innocent because his friend’s cool stare simply screamed Hot Arrogant.
Maddie made a face. “That was a bit passive-aggressive, wasn’t it?”
The women laughed. “That’s okay,” Penny replied. “I just want to know why.”
Maddie rocked her head from side to side. “Well, Matt says I can’t always avoid my problems and need to seek confrontation.”
“So, Mister Hot Arrogant is a problem?” Anna inquired.
Maddie nodded. “He’s the egomaniacal divorce lawyer next door.”
Lucy clicked her tongue. “He’s beneath you, Maddie! You can’t win against Connor Stone. As his name suggests, he’s a rock. The other day, when he showed up at your door complaining about something ridiculous, I said the weather was nice. He asked if I was a meteorologist or just terribly boring.”
Penny laughed while Anna leaned forward curiously. “So your problem with him is that he’s an asshole?”
“Not only that. He’s killing our business!” Maddie complained. “He tells all his clients who are considering applying with us after their divorce that they might as well perform a shamanic love dance or ask the spirits of their ancestors for help in finding a new partner.”
“Oh, he’s the ultimate cynic,” Lucy stated angrily. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“Child of divorce,” Penny immediately stated. “Statistically, ninety percent of divorce lawyers are victims of their parents’ divorce. So, their cynicism has a root cause.”
Maddie frowned. “Is that true?”
Penny grinned. “I don’t know. Sometimes I just make up statistics to support my point and hope no one fact checks it.”
Anna laughed. “I bet it’s true. Although even children of non-divorce can become cynical.” She pointed to herself with both thumbs.
“Yeah, but your childhood was also super messed up. A divorce might have helped,” Lucy said
“What was so bad?” Maddie asked, but added, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”