Chapter One #3
“No,” Bailey said with a laugh, then paused. “Although I wouldn’t object.”
“I would,” Chloe put in.
“She’s so selfish,” Bailey said to Gwen.
Gwen shook her head in mock sadness at Chloe. “Best friends share, you know.”
“You didn’t share your cake, I’m not sharing my boyfriends,” Chloe told Bailey.
“I take it back, you can have cake,” Bailey said.
“Too late.”
“Harsh, but fair,” Gwen commented and looked down at her empty sundae bowl. “Holy crap, I ate this whole sundae. I feel a little sick now.”
“Did you order yourself any actual food, or just the sundae?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Just the sundae.” Looking a little green through her sheet mask, Gwen pressed a hand to her belly. “I need protein.”
“Want some of my sandwich?” Chloe offered.
“Yes, please.”
Chloe held out her plate. “Go on, Bails.”
“Where was I?”
“Following my lead,” Chloe prompted as Gwen chose a section of sandwich.
“Right. My birthday wish is a gang bang,” Bailey announced, and waited for the expected expressions of shock.
Instead, Chloe looked at Gwen with resignation. Gwen looked back with smug triumph and said, “You owe me twenty bucks.”
“What?” Bailey looked from Gwen to Chloe and back to Gwen. “What?”
“She owes me twenty bucks,” Gwen repeated, nibbling on the edges of the sandwich.
Bailey looked at Chloe. “Why?”
“Because she called it,” Chloe said and popped a ketchup-covered fry into her mouth.
“Called what?” Bailey asked blankly, then goggled. “You guessed my birthday wish?”
“It wasn’t hard,” Gwen said blithely, continuing to nibble. “You talk about it all the time.”
“I do not talk about it all the time,” Bailey protested, then blinked. “Do I?”
“All the time is an exaggeration,” Chloe acknowledged. “You haven’t mentioned it in at least, what?” She turned to Gwen. “Three years?”
“About that,” Gwen agreed. “But for the five years after college it came up a lot.”
“Well, I was mad,” Bailey said, annoyed. This was not how she’d expected this conversation to go.
“And you had every right to be,” Chloe declared.
The solidarity went a long way toward smoothing the ruffled feathers of Bailey’s ego. “Damn right I did. I did Nash’s fantasy, then before we could do mine he dumps me? I should’ve peeled the skin off his balls with a rusty knife.”
Gwen stopped nibbling her sandwich. “Ew.”
“I don’t think he broke up with you so he wouldn’t have to do the gang bang,” Chloe offered.
Bailey thought about arguing the point just for fun, then shrugged. “No, he didn’t. It was just bad timing. But I was still mad.”
“What was Nash’s fantasy again?” Gwen asked. “I forget.”
“Two girls,” Chloe reminded her.
Gwen snorted. “Typical.”
“I didn’t mind. It was fun.” Bailey smiled a little at the memory.
“And he was working on setting up my fantasy gang bang. Then we had some random fight, and he went to a bar with his buddies to cool off, and Kyle Volley told him I cheated on him by going down on Graham Isaac behind the student union and he dumped me.”
“You’re getting mad again,” Gwen warned.
“I’m not getting mad,” Bailey insisted, keeping her voice cool to prove it. “It was eight years ago. Why would I get mad?”
“Uh, because you loved him and he believed that oozing ball of pus Kyle over you?”
“He believed her eventually,” Gwen offered.
“Not until Graham told him the BJ happened freshman year,” Chloe reminded her. “A fact Kyle conveniently forgot to mention.”
“God, he was an ass,” Bailey commented.
“Kyle or Nash?” Gwen wanted to know.
“I meant Kyle, but Nash was an ass, too.”
“The king of the asses,” Chloe muttered darkly. “He broke your heart.”
“He did,” Bailey agreed. Broke it, shattered it, sliced it to ribbons. Then she shrugged. “But I got over it.”
“Did you?” Chloe murmured.
Bailey resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Chloe thought she was harboring some deep, secret longing for Nash, that what had happened back in college had left unfinished business between them. Bailey had never been able to convince her otherwise. “Yes. We’re friends now, that’s all.”
“And roommates,” Gwen added. “How’s that going?”
“Too soon to tell,” Bailey said, ignoring Chloe’s skeptical gaze. When her last roommate had moved out—and good riddance to bad rubbish—she’d decided to offer the spare room to Nash. He’d been facing a rent hike at his apartment, and she hated living alone, so it felt like a win-win to her.
Chloe thought it was the dumbest idea since Napoleon had invaded Russia.
“He moved all his stuff in at the beginning of the month,” Bailey continued, “but then he went on vacation for two weeks. He got back today, but I haven’t seen him. I came straight here from the salon.”
Gwen, who loved to travel, perked up. “Where’d he go on vacation?”
“The UK, to walk Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall.”
“What are those?”
“Walls that were built during the Roman occupation of Britain,” Bailey explained. “Fortifications, basically. Hadrian’s Wall is in England, Antonine Wall is in Scotland.”
Gwen looked fascinated. “What does ‘walk them’ mean?”
“I think it means they just follow them, walk alongside them?” Bailey shrugged. “He didn’t give me a lot of details. I know they’re both world heritage sites, and Nash digs on that stuff. He’s got a cousin who’s into it, too, so they went together.”
“Cool,” Gwen decided.
“So, let me get this straight,” Chloe said. “You’re starting your thirties living with your ex-boyfriend, you might start dating the hot masseuse, and your birthday wish is a gang bang.”
Bailey grinned, the mask crinkling around her mouth. “Go big or go home, right?”
“And I thought I started my year with chaos.”
“She did say she was following your lead,” Gwen put in.
“There is one more thing,” Bailey said and reached up to tap her face. “Gwen, can I take this off yet?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Gwen slid her glasses off. “We all should.”
Chloe began gingerly plucking at the edges of the plastic by her hairline. “What one more thing?”
Bailey worked her fingers under the sheet at her chin and began carefully peeling it up. “I need someone to coordinate the gang bang for me.”
“What, like a party planner?” Gwen asked.
Bailey laughed. “Sure. A naked party planner who has sex with me.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” Chloe commented, her face emerging as the mask inched down.
“Where do you find a naked party planner?” Gwen asked.
Chloe stopped peeling to point at Bailey. “No dating apps.”
“God, no. I’m reckless, not foolish.”
Gwen pulled the last bit of her mask off. “Those words mean the same thing.”
“Do not.”
“You should hire Sawyer,” Chloe suggested, wiggling her nose as she freed it from the mask. “He’d be perfect.”
“He’s an option,” Bailey agreed. The sex worker Chloe had almost used for her threesome fantasy was sexy, handsome, and no doubt very good at his job. “I’m keeping him as a backup if my first choice falls through.”
Chloe finished peeling off the mask and reached for her champagne. “Who’s your first choice?”
Bailey set her mask aside and stroked her dewy, baby-soft face. “Nash, of course.”
Chloe choked on her wine, sputtering and coughing, while Gwen just stared, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a look of blank-faced shock.
Well now, Bailey thought with a pleased smile. That’s more like it.