1. A new year begins
A new year begins
The present
“Happy New Year!”
All around Jules, there was mayhem as everyone in Three Amigos celebrated the arrival of a new year.
The bar was packed with people, and despite it being her favorite ‘holiday’ and being surrounded by boisterous bar patrons all having a good time (including her best friend, Paige), Jules found herself feeling oddly alone and out of sorts.
Perhaps it was the fact she was one of only a few people not paired up for the evening and wasn’t currently locking lips with anyone, that made it seem like something was missing in her life.
And it did feel like something was missing.
Usually she loved the idea of a new year stretching out before her, full of unknown promise, but right now, that unknown promise seemed ... not very promising. It actually seemed a little depressing ... and empty.
She suspected part of it was seeing her best friend so settled and blissfully happy, and while Jules didn’t consider herself to be unhappy , she knew she wasn’t anywhere near Paige’s level of happiness.
And in that moment, her mind drifted to a man she’d met fourteen months ago in a Japanese restaurant, then basically ghosted.
In her defense, though, she’d done it mostly for him, because upon meeting Malcom, the Clark Kent ringer, she’d known he wasn’t a one-night stand kind of guy.
Or even a two-night stand kind of guy. He was a guy who wanted to take her to dinner at a nice restaurant, with cloth napkins and expensive food, and would have their second date planned by the time their bottle of wine arrived, and the third one planned as a decadent dessert was being served on one plate with two forks.
He was a guy looking for long-term, and she’d never been motivated—for lack of a better word—to do long-term.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t thought of him many times over the past fourteen months, though, because she had.
He’d crossed her mind at random moments, like when she was at the grocery store, passing a display of books and saw Killing Kennedy , the one Malcom had been reading at the restaurant—and before Jules knew what she was doing, she’d tossed it in her cart.
Even more confounding was when she got it home and actually read the damn thing—the last book she’d read had been about a drummer in a fictional rock band.
She’d also thought about Malcom when she was out with other men, and to her aggravation (and bafflement) it had put a serious damper on more than one evening.
When faced with a naked man, she’d actually found herself wondering what Malcom would look like naked, and that unfortunately led to her wondering what he’d be like during sex …
which led to the burning question of his glasses.
Did he really take them off during sex? And if he really did, what did he look like without them on?
Sexy? Or adorably myopic?
It really shouldn’t matter, one way or the other, because she was never going to find out. And wondering was a waste of time—as was every time she took his business card out of her purse and looked at it.
Maybe her New Year’s resolution should be to quit thinking about Malcom in any way, shape, or form, and to rip up his business card. Of course, she probably should’ve made that last year’s resolution, because if she had, she probably wouldn’t be in this mess.
As Paige and her husband, David (whom she’d recently re-married six months ago) broke apart from their energetic lip-lock, Jules knew before a word was said the two of them were going to be leaving, pronto.
It was written all over their faces, the need to go and have sweaty, needy, mind-blowing sex.
Jules didn’t blame them, as she wouldn’t mind having some of that herself.
“David and I are going to head out,” Paige whisper-shouted in Jules’ ear as the local band started playing a new song .
“Okay,” Jules whisper-shouted back. “You two kids go have some fun! And come at least twice!”
“She will,” David promised over Paige’s shoulder, before pulling her out of the bar like the building was on fire, and the roof was about to collapse.
Evan, the head bartender and one-third owner of Three Amigos—as well as David’s best friend—shook his head at the abrupt departure. “If I wasn’t so happy for the two of them, they’d be really annoying,” he said.
Jules chuckled. “Same.”
He leaned against the bar, closing the space between himself and Jules. “So …” he trailed off to glance around for a second before continuing. “Is Cat Lady knocked up?”
“When are you going to quit calling her that?”
“Well, since it’s become an established nickname … never?”
“It’s the worst nickname in the world.”
“I beg to differ. It’s not worse than ‘Dick’.”
Jules considered David’s nickname for Evan, which had come about when the two men had met years ago, and after pretending to flirt with David and getting him a little flustered, David had told Evan he was being a dick.
“Yes, it’s worse than that, because ‘Dick’ could be construed as referring to your actual dick, and your potentially large endowment—”
“Potentially?”
“Yes, potentially , since I haven’t seen it . But ‘Cat Lady’ conjures up disturbing images of a mentally ill, old woman wearing dirty clothes, with fifty cats running around her dilapidated house, which is filled with overflowing litter boxes.”
“That was oddly descriptive.”
“Thank you.”
Evan cleared his throat. “Okay, I get your point, but it’s too late to change her nickname.” Then, after an unrepentant shrug, he repeated his question. “So … is Cat Lady knocked up? She was only drinking virgin margaritas tonight.”
“She actually quit drinking alcohol when she and David started trying to make a baby,” Jules explained. “She didn’t want anything to potentially interfere with the process, or possibly ingest any alcohol right after conceiving.”
Evan paused for a moment, figuring the extra precaution was a result of the miscarriage Paige suffered years ago, and his voice softened. “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. Why would I know that?”
“David could have told you.”
“He and I talk about a lot of things, but the finer points of impregnating his wife hasn’t come up. Mainly because it’s kind of personal and probably none of my business.”
“Hmm. I’ve never let that stop me from getting information.”
Evan’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure you haven’t.”
She shook off the sarcasm. “Well, then I’m surprised you haven’t noticed she hasn’t had a real drink in six months.”
“If I’d spent any real time with them in the past six months, I might have. But, I’ve been working my ass off here almost every night and hardly see them unless it’s for an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon. And the last time I was at their place on a Sunday afternoon, I fell asleep on the couch.”
“Oh.” Jules gave him a sympathetic look (because his work schedule sounded really awful), then leaned forward a little, as if to share a secret. “Well, in answer to your question, I do think she’s pregnant.”
“You do? Why? Best friend perspicacity?”
“Perspi … what?”
“Perspicacity. Intuition,” he clarified.
“Why didn’t you just say ‘intuition’?”
“Because it’s not my Word-of-the-Day.”
“Word-of-the-Day?”
“It’s an app.”
She gave him a long look before saying, “All right.”
“That’s it? ‘All right’?”
“Am I supposed to say more?”
“Most people give me shit about it.”
“Well, I’m not like ‘most’ people, and I’m in no position to throw stones, so I won’t be giving you any shit about your Word-of-the-Day app.”
He seemed pleased and surprised at that, then returned to the original topic. “So, if you’re not using your perspicacity, why do you think Cat Lady’s knocked up?”
“I was there during her first pregnancy, and her boobs got bigger right away.”
“Are you saying her boobs have gotten bigger?”
“Yes. I’m surprised you didn’t notice that . ”
“I try not to look, because David frowns on my checking out his wife’s boobs. He’s still pretty annoyed that I touched one of her bras.”
Jules rolled her eyes to indicate she thought David ‘frowned’ on way too many things, including the time Evan had touched Paige’s bra the night she’d handcuffed David to the bed.
After things had gone awry and she’d left in a funk (leaving her bra behind), David had to call Evan to come to the rescue, and unfortunately had witnessed David oiled up and restrained, with Paige’s sexy, red bra lying on the floor.
Evan, being Evan, had grabbed it and proceeded to use it in order to mess with David.
“It’s not like she was wearing it at the time,” Jules pointed out.
Evan gave an amused shake of his head. “That’s a distinction David doesn’t care about.”
Jules waved a hand, as if sweeping David out of the conversation. “Anyway, I expect we’ll be told pretty soon, and when they do tell us, you need to act surprised, and not ruin their big moment, okay?”
“Okay,” Evan said, his words coming out a little loud, as the band finished a song and came back to the bar for a break.
She wasn’t surprised when, less than a minute later, Lars brought her a gin and tonic, courtesy of the drummer, with whom she’d had an unsatisfactory sexual encounter a year ago.
She’d managed to avoid him the night of Paige and David’s wedding reception last June, by using Nate, one of David’s friends from college, as cover.
She’d also been trying to avoid the drummer tonight, with Paige and David as her cover this time, but their departure had left her wide open.
Forcing herself to maintain a pleasant expression, she shook her head at Lars and pushed the drink back at him, while Evan watched. “Please tell him I said, ‘Thank you’ but I can’t accept this.”
“Really?” Lars was surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, she’s sure,” Evan told him rudely.
“All right.” Lars took the drink and headed back to the drummer, who looked equally as surprised.
“Not that I’m questioning your decision,” Evan said, “but—”