31. Chapter 31 #2
Her soft hand grips my wrist, and she rubs her thumb over the lilac. “You got a tattoo for me?”
“The other girls did too. On the first anniversary of your disappearance, which was right before your nineteenth birthday, so we got our ink right before your twentieth.”
Evie pulls me into a hard hug. We hold each other for a long while, and the tears return in full force. Then I pull back and give her a tremulous smile. “Okay, enough of that. On to birthday number twenty-one. This one will make you laugh.”
We go through the gifts, year by year. Most of them aren’t really profound, just stuff like a cute pair of earrings, a turtle-printed pajama set, or quirky little things I knew she’d like.
“I still can’t believe you got me a cheese-flavored condom,” she says, falling over onto the couch in a fit of giggles with the foil packet held to her chest.
“It made me laugh when I saw it, and my first thought was that I wanted to call and tell you about it. So that was your gift for your twenty-third birthday.” I shrug. “That was over a decade ago, so I wouldn’t suggest using it.”
“Yeah, probably wouldn’t taste very fresh.” She holds it between two fingers and wiggles it. “But I’m gonna think about this every time I eat a bag of Cheetos.”
And I’ll think about him every time I do. Damn, the things Reno Swain can do with a Cheeto.
Brushing away the thought, I pull out the final gift. “Here’s the last one. I had an artist draw it up for me earlier this year,” I tell her, handing over the flat package in lavender wrapping paper.
Evie tears open the paper like a kid on Christmas morning. Then her eyes fill with tears, and her voice cracks. “Juli, it’s us.”
The framed artwork shows two women from the back, one with long caramel hair and the other with long blonde hair. Arms around waists. Heads tilted slightly toward each other
“Sorry, your hair is different now,” I apologize.
“No, it’s us back then, and I love it.” She reads the calligraphed words aloud. “I may not always be there with you, but I will always be there for you.”
“I don’t know how, but I knew you were still alive. Those words hit me hard, and all I wanted was for you to feel my support and love, no matter where you were.” I reach over and grasp her hand. “And unknown to me, you were the one supporting me almost the whole time by being on my ARC team. ”
“I told you in Cancún when I read those few chapters of your first book that I wanted to buy the first copy when you published it. This was as close to doing that as I could get.” She squeezes my hand.
“And I bought lots of copies of all your books, one for me, one to donate to our local library, and the rest as gifts.”
“Shit, I need more wine,” I croak, grabbing the bottle of red as tears threaten again. I drink straight from the bottle before handing it over to my best friend.
“Well, aren’t we a couple of winos,” she comments before taking a long swig. “I’ve missed the hell out of you, Juliette.”
I slump down and tilt my head over onto her shoulder. “I missed you too, Evie.”
We sit wordlessly for a long time, passing the bottle back and forth and simply being together. Evie picks up the artwork again and angles her head. “Our asses look really good in this pic.”
Snorting, I shake my head. “Do you really think I’d pay someone to do artwork for me and then tell her to give us barn asses?”
We dissolve in gales of laughter again before Evie nudges me with her shoulder.
“Tell me about your writing retreat. It was obviously successful because that turned out to be one bomb-ass book, but I want to know if you had time for some fun.” She does a drunken bump and grind while still seated on the couch. “Of the bow-chicka-wow-wow variety.”
I haven’t told anyone about Reno, aside from a brief, nameless mention of him to Holly. But this is Evie, my best friend since I was a little girl.
“There was a guy…”
“Eeeeek!” Evie smacks my arm. “I fucking knew it! Your sex scenes were so detailed and raw. I just knew you had some carnal inspiration.”
“Oh, it was carnal all right,” I muse, covering my eyes in embarrassment. “I kinda sorta accidentally booked my writing retreat at… a sw ingers’ resort.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room, and I peep through two of my fingers to find Evie staring slack-jawed at me.
“You went to a swingers’ resort?” she finally asks, and I nod before receiving a smack to the left tit. “You kinky bitch!”
“Oww,” I complain, rubbing my boob. “I didn’t go there on purpose. At first I didn’t even know it was that kind of place.”
Evie throws back her head and laughs from deep in her belly. “Oh my freaking god. Only you, Juli.”
My eyes roll to the coffered ceiling. “That’s the same thing Holly said.”
“I still can’t believe she’s married to your brother,” she says before shaking her head. “We’ll come back to Holly later. Did you hook up with a couple? Oooh, or participate in group activities?”
“No,” I protest. “It was just one guy. He found himself there accidentally as well. Someone else booked his getaway, and when he got there, he instantly realized from all the upside down pineapples that it was a swingers’ resort.”
“And you didn’t?” she asks incredulously.
I give her a flat look. “No. Unfortunately, I was not aware of the meaning of inverted fruit.”
Evie snickers. “I love how you can write the raunchiest shit ever in your books, and yet you still have this certain naivety about you.” She turns to face me, sitting cross-legged. “So tell me about the guy. I’m assuming he’s not into the lifestyle?”
“He’s not.” Slipping off my shoes, I mirror her position. “His name is Reno Swain.” I pause to see if she recognizes the name, and by the rounding of her eyes, she does.
“Shut the front door. The hockey player? Reno Swoon?”
“That would be him.”
She flops dramatically back onto the seat of the couch. “Holy hell, woman! Reno’s a total stud muffin. He looks like he could do some damage. ”
“Oh, he did some damage all right,” I mutter, and Evie snaps back to sitting with narrowed eyes.
“Did he hurt you? Because I will ram a hockey stick so far up his ass, he could use it as a toothpick.”
This is why she’s my best friend. Evie is both hilarious and brutally loyal. I pat her knee and shake my head.
“No, he didn’t hurt me. We decided at the beginning of our fling that we would just be together while we were at the resort. He agreed to help inspire my writing.”
“He did a damn good job of it. That book is fuck-hot, and I think you should keep him on retainer.” I try to smile at that, but it’s halfhearted at best. Evie notices and takes my hand. “Juli, did you catch feelings?”
I press my lips together and nod, staring down at our hands. A heavy tear falls onto my ankle. “It’s stupid, really. It was only a few weeks.”
“Oh honey, that doesn’t matter. Is there any way you can contact him?”
“I have his number,” I admit, looking up at her.
“Then call him,” she insists gently. “I’m sure he’s smitten with you too. I mean, he’d have to be stupid not to be. You’re so gorgeous and talented.”
“And a complete nitwit who doesn’t know about upside down pineapples,” I add with a shaky laugh to lighten the mood.
“You’re the most lovable dingbat I know,” Evie says. “Will you think about calling him?”
“I can’t. We agreed to have an island fling, hot and uncomplicated. I don’t want to be that girl who calls weeks later and says, ‘Hey, guess what? I fell for you.’ No guy wants that, especially not someone who literally has women bowing at his feet.”
“What if he feels the same about you?”
I’m pretty sure he does if his face when I walked away from him in the Miami airport was any indication. Instead of saying that, I shake my head.
“A few fun weeks on vacation is fine, but I can’t let it go any farther than that. I’ll just… get over it, I guess.”
But the sharp constriction of my chest tells me that getting over Reno Swain will be easier said than done.