Chapter 3 #2
“Jesus. I should have cut you off earlier.” She plops the dishcloth in the sink behind the counter. “At least he doesn’t cheat.”
“Alec cheated on you?”
Knew she was better than him.
Her mouth tightens, twisting with bitterness. “He’s the one who asked me to be exclusive. I was okay hooking up, you know?”
“Men are pigs but hockey players are wild boars.”
“Damn straight.” Her gaze drifts across the bar. “Your wild boar savior approaches.”
“Huh?”
“Jesus, Denny, where are your shoes?”
A whip around reveals the pool table with the leopard-print baize and the wall of vintage records behind it. My dad would die of mortification if he knew how many of his faves are decoration now.
Chuckling to myself, I get caught up in the hypnotic motion of the overhead fan circling endlessly, then realize that Zach’s voice is nearer than I thought but also farther away. I stumble off the stool but before I faceplant, he’s there to catch me.
Bah. “You suck, Zach!”
“Huh?”
“You suck! Being all tall and big and having a great core and balance. You know what else sucks? Why do women have to wear heels and not men? I have ten blisters, Zach. Ten. Where are your blisters?”
“What do blisters have to do with my core?”
“Maybe if I had a core, then I wouldn’t have blisters.” I wag a finger at him, unaware that he’s holding me in a dramatic swoop position. For the most part, I’m hella comfortable in his arms. “What do you have to say about that?”
“I say that you need to get into bed before you poke out my eye. I need 20/20 vision if I’m going to make it to the top, D.”
Something in his tone has me frowning.
“What about my blisters?” When I see his lips twitch, I slap a hand to my chest. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Nope. Not at all. Where are your shoes?”
“Somewhere between the sorority house and here. I tossed them out. Like I’d toss a man out of my hair. They’re in the wind. With my blood, sweat, and blister juice in them.”
“Great imagery, Denny. Come on. I’ll carry you to my SUV.”
“Nah. You were right about Pecan. I can walk,” I tell him even as he suddenly gets ten feet taller. My eyes bug. “When did you grow?”
“When you tried to sit on the floor,” he reasons with a smirk but doesn’t give me much time to argue when he hauls me in a fireman’s lift over his shoulder. “Night, Freya. Thanks for cutting her off.”
“You’re welcome, Zach.” She salutes cheerfully.
I lift my head to scowl at her but get caught up on the four versions of her in the wall of mirrors behind the liquor shelves. One of them gets a half-scowl. My aim shifts when he rests a hand on the backs of my thighs to keep me in place.
His fingers are really close to my—
“Okay, we’re here.”
Shit. We are?
I squint at his SUV then huff as he maneuvers me into his ride. I find myself slouching over his center console, partially in my seat and partially in his. I blink up at the swaying worry beads I bought him when my mom took us to Greece after the divorce.
The glittery sandstone beads hang over his mirror, ones I liked the idea of him having close.
A part of me wonders if, whenever he’s driving, he thinks of me when he sees it.
I shouldn’t appreciate that he might, right?
When he opens his door, I accuse, “You’re tall again.”
“Because you’re lying down. Can I just say that I’m glad you don’t get drunk often? I forgot how you lose your bones when you drink.”
“They’re still there.” My tone’s solemn. “But they need a vacation because of the blisters.”
“The blisters. Right.” He clucks his tongue and manages to flop me over to my side of the SUV.
Yes. My side.
His ride, my side.
“I’m a poet!” I declare.
“Sure you are.”
When he tucks in first my seatbelt then his, I study him, and though I know I’m drooling, I’m also sighing.
Because, yes, he’s pretty. And Freya’s right about him being a future pro-hockey player.
And I just know that his ass is going to feature in some boxer briefs’ ad at some point like Cole Korhonen.
And he’ll have a jersey swinging in whatever arena is lucky enough to have him play there and as his BFF, I’ll get that jersey by default…
“Denny? You sleeping?”
My head flops forward. “Nah.”
“You were snoring.”
“Wasn’t.”
“Was. You still hungry?”
“Nah.” If anything, I feel nauseated. “Mom and Dad divorced, Z.”
He pauses. “Yeah, gorgeous. I know.”
Gorgeous.
Huh?
“Dad sucks.”
“He does.”
“Cheaters suck.”
“Your mom cheated too.”
“Self-defense,” I protest.
“Is cheating ever a defense?”
I slump in my seat. “What’s the point in relationships, Zach?”
“I dunno, D. It’s what you do, I guess?”
“Your mom and dad’s relationship sucked. Mine’s sucked.”
“Helmie and Davis’s doesn’t.”
“No.” I gust out a breath when a strand of hair flops into my line of sight. “Pecan’s lucky and he doesn’t even know it. I can’t imagine Davis fucking a puck rabbit.”
“Why do you call them that when you’re drunk?”
“Because bunnies are cute and those bitches have the personalities of vipers. Vipers eat rabbits—”
“I’m not sure that’s their core prey.”
“Semantics. Therefore, puck rabbits.” I harrumph at his chuckle. “How long until we’re home?”
“Couple minutes. How are the blisters?”
“I think my feet will need amputating.”
“That bad, huh?” He tsks, but it’s comforting. Zach always is. Unlike Pecan, whose idea of comfort is to douse me in rubbing alcohol, Zach will hold my hand or pat it and tell me everything’ll be all right, even if the doctor does need to amputate. “I’ll hold your hand while the doctors do it.”
Ha! Knew it.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Zach is the best.”
“I’m back to being the best, huh?”
“You always were.”
“Didn’t sound like it when you were massacring my character with Freya.”
“I was not! I’d never!”
“Sure you were.”
Did I? I don’t remember that.
I tilt my head toward a car that drives by us, a song blaring out of their sound system. I like it. I snag his phone from the charger and quickly add it to one of my many playlists.
This one goes on ‘Drunk Denny.’ I don’t get drunk often, but I figure I should start a playlist.
Humming the song, I ask, “Zach?”
“Yup.”
“Don’t trust my dad.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t trust him.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t. Okay?”
“I kind of want him to be my agent, Denny,” he argues.
“Well, he can be. He’s good at his job. But… get a good lawyer to check the contracts. One that isn’t banging my mom.”
“Where’s this coming from, D?”
“If a man cheats on his wife with a woman twenty years younger than him, is he trustworthy?”
“No.”
“Well, then. Maybe the slimy lawyer’s good at his job. I’ll research him. That’ll be hilarious if they have to work together.” I hoot. “In fact, we need to make this happen.”
“You don’t really talk about their breakup that much, D.”
“What’s to talk about? The endless fights or the way Mom turned into a private eye on the side? The fact that she humiliated herself to get back at him?” I stare at the lights of incoming traffic that make his worry beads glitter in them. So pretty.
“She did?”
“I caught her fucking the pool boy, Zach. She expected me to be Dad.”
“That sucks.”
“No, but she did.” I snigger out a broken laugh. “Marriage sucks. Relationships sucks. I mean, suck. Love sucks. Heartbreak sucks.” I pop upright. “I’m never getting married.”
“Don’t say that, D!” he blusters.
“Why would I repeat that toxic pattern?”
“You’re not your parents, gorgeous.”
I pull a face. “Stop calling me that.”
“Why would I? It’s what you are.”
My drunk brain doesn’t translate his compliment that well. And I don’t need to. The lights shift, becoming brighter as we enter the parking garage, and my ears hurt when the squeal of his tires sounds overly loud to me.
“We’re home.”
Home.
He’s mine.
Does he know that?
“I do know that, D. You’re my home too.”
Huh. I said that out loud.
“Yes, you did. Now, come on.”
Once he parks, he helps me out of the SUV. The overhead lights glare and make my eyes sting.
I flop into him, limbs sagging when he tries to get me over his shoulder again. He settles for carrying me like a bride, and I’m well aware that I cry once we cross our threshold because I’ll never be Zach’s bride.
Stupid Freya. I never even thought about Zach and marriage before. I wouldn’t want to be his wife. Or his girlfriend.
I’m his best friend.
And best friends are forever and wives aren’t.
“Some wives are,” Zach whispers as he places me in my bed.
“Not like best friends,” I mumble.
“Get some sleep, D.”
I roll onto my side and that’s me gone.
I don’t feel him do something to my blistered feet.
I don’t feel him drag up my blanket.
Don’t even feel him hold my hair up in the middle of the night when I puke out my guts.
But I don’t need to feel him.
This is what best friends are for.