Chapter 3 #4
The pain in Naomi’s chest eased enough that she felt like she could take a deep breath.
How did Abby always know what to say? It was like she could hear the megaphone in Naomi’s head.
This wasn’t the first time, either. Abby had been there for her since the beginning, since the first time she shed tears over Simon.
Abby was the only one who had made her feel safe, instead of judged.
“Well, I don’t know if Becca is ever really here for anything,” Abby continued. “But Riley and I are here.” She even knew how to make Naomi smile in moments like this.
“Sorry,” Naomi said through her tears. “I know I shouldn’t let him get to me like this. Especially not after all these years.”
“Yes, I definitely think shaming yourself is the right call.”
Naomi made a braying sound, a hybrid of crying and laughing.
She covered her face, pressing her fingers to her eyes like a tourniquet, trying to stop the tears.
“I wasn’t expecting it, is all. I haven’t heard from him in, what, six months?
I had started to think that maybe …” Maybe he felt like he had punished her enough and was done.
Maybe he had finally gotten the help he needed to heal and move on.
Maybe, just maybe, some part of him loved her enough to let her go.
The Maybes were too painful, eliciting a fresh downpour of tears.
“I know,” Abby said. And Naomi knew that she did. She knew all the Maybes that lived in Naomi’s heart, and she held space for them, in silence, while Naomi cried.
As the storm inside her began to quiet again, she heard voices behind her.
“So, what happened?” Becca asked.
Abby stood up, presumably to run interference with her sister, and Riley took her place on the bench.
“You doing okay?” they asked. Riley had met her before she married Simon, but several years after the start of her relationship with him, long after she had become too lost in the maze of the relationship to see that there was anything wrong.
Riley had been there for her too, in a different way than Abby, because their relationships were different, but had helped her in a way she would never be able to repay.
“I’m better. It caught me off guard.”
Riley held out her phone. Naomi had completely forgotten she’d given it to Abby. “I searched the number. It came up right away on one of those text spoofing sites. There’s no way to trace it to him.”
An involuntary sigh escaped her lips. Naomi had long since given up trying to “trace” him or waste any effort trying to get help from the judicial system.
Simon knew how to get around the legalities.
Sometimes she wondered if that’s the only reason he became an attorney, so that he could learn the laws and make the connections he needed to keep her under his thumb.
Abby growled. “Of course.”
Becca appeared at her side. “You know what you need? You need one night of really good sex. After that, you won’t even be thinking about this loser; trust me.”
“Rebecca,” Abby said, moving closer to her sister again. “I think you should—”
“Should what? Stop giving good advice? Please, Abigail, if there’s anything I know about, it’s boy troubles.” She wasn’t wrong.
Riley was nodding vigorously. “And don’t forget me, I mean, if you think about it.” They looked at Abby. “Of the three of us, you’re the only one without any boy experience. So really, it seems like Becca and I should take the lead here.”
“You know, Riley, you have a point there,” Becca said. “The two of us—we’re like the dream team of boy advice.”
“You’re right! We should have a podcast!” Riley said excitedly.
“Yes! Oh my God, people would lose their minds. We could call it, um, Dicks for Days.”
“Ooh! Cock O’Clock.”
“Why not go simple and just call it Penis, Penis, Penis?”
“Okay, we’ll figure out the name later. But regardless,” Becca swiveled her head to look back at Naomi. “Naomi, my co-host is correct. The only way to get over a boy is to get under another one. Or at least near one.”
All three of them were looking at her now. If Becca’s goal had been to distract her with discomfort, it was working. She, unlike Becca and Riley, didn’t like being the center of attention. “I … uh … I suppose …”
“Trust me, this is exactly what you need.”
That was not what she needed. She needed the opposite. She needed to be alone, with a hot bath, a big mug of tea, and a crime documentary that had at least three spin-off podcasts that she could binge. She didn’t need sex.
No, the solution was definitely not to be found in a pair of bright brown eyes and tousled, earthy brown hair and playful dimples and defined arms and warm, comforting voice and … oh god, was she thinking about Will?
“Uh-oh. I know that look.” Leave it to Becca to pick up on that. “You’ve got someone in mind, don’t you, you naughty girl? Who is it?”
“Well.” She stopped. This was absurd. She’d talked to him for maybe an hour.
She didn’t even know his last name—his nametag had only had his first name hastily scribbled across it.
It didn’t matter if she had someone in mind.
The moment had passed. And she had decided she wasn’t ready anyway, right?
But she knew that Becca, currently watching her like a lioness about to pounce, wouldn’t let her go without some kind of an answer.
“I met this guy last night …” she said, as vaguely as possible.
“Freya’s minion?” Abby asked, her voice laced with the kind of horror usually reserved for finding a spider in the shower.
So much for being vague. So much for assuming that Abby hadn’t noticed she’d hit it off with Will or that she didn’t feel some type of way about his connection to Freya.
Becca clapped her hands together. “Perfect! Text him.”
Naomi shook her head, ready to put this to rest. “That’s the problem.
He was reaching into his pocket to give me his card.
” She didn’t really want to go into the whole part where he had actually tried to hand her his card and she’d frozen up like a deer in headlights—if the deer had also had a full-blown existential crisis.
She could get the job done without going into that insignificant and humiliating little detail. “But that’s when, well …”
She clamped down on her tongue and peeked at Abby.
The rest of that story was in the vault.
And as tempting as it was to throw Becca off the scent by telling her about Abby’s dramatic exit last night, and as likely as it was that Riley would let it slip sooner rather than later, she was going to honor her best friend promise to keep it a secret.
She released her tongue from between her teeth and said quickly, “Suffice it to say, things got a little crazy, and I never got his info. All I know is he works with Freya at Nightly Global News.”
She internally patted herself on the back for her nice sidestep.
“Freya from Nightly Global News? As in Freya Jonsson?” Becca said, and Naomi’s imaginary back pat turned into a face palm. “As in People’s Sexiest Woman of the Year? As in the face that has brought many lonely people great happiness in their beds at night?”
“Yes,” Riley said, not helping. “As in Abigail’s archnemesis.”
“She is not my archnemesis,” Abby said, her tone edged with mild exasperation at the turn the conversation was taking.
“Wait a minute,” Becca said. “That’s the same Freya? The girl from high school she always used to complain about?”
“One and the same!” Riley said.
“You never told me that!” Becca directed her high-pitched accusation at Abby “You never told me that you were friends with a celebrity.”
Abby crossed her arms defensively. “That’s because I’m not.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I told you—no number.” Naomi redirected Becca’s attention back to her. “I don’t even know his last name.”
“Naomi, Naomi, let me show you how it’s done.
” Becca took out her phone, presumably to begin some Internet sleuthing.
Naomi felt like she should object. But her interest in taking a peek at his Instagram or even LinkedIn outweighed her rational mind.
What harm could it do to sate some curiosity and enjoy the view one more time?
“Here we go,” Becca said, smiling at her phone. Naomi leaned forward, expecting Becca to turn her phone and put his social media on display. But that’s not what happened. Instead, she said, “Nightly Global News, main line,” and before Naomi could even process what she meant, Becca initiated a call.