Page 2 of Chilled and Thrilled

The sudden movement makes my stomach churn ominously, but I am not vomiting right now. The night isyoung, and I am determined to make every single bad choice ever. “Hey, can you guys take me somewhere to get pregnant and try illegal narcotics? For funsies?”

Blondie pushes the door to the bar open, and all three of us squeeze through onto the cold street. “Yup. Absolutely. I’ll order a car to take us to Illegal-Narcotics-R-Us.”

“You forgot getting me pregnant.” I peer around, and my eyes lock on a man standing at the curb. He’s okay looking. “Excuse me! Sir!” There’s a round of shushing from my jailers, which I ignore. “Want to get me pregnant?”

He blinks at me. “I’m gay.”

“Damn it!”

Blondie leads us farther away from the gay guy who won’t get me pregnant. “Jesus, Sophie,” she groans, shaking her head. “You’re going to get us murdered.”

“That sounds like a great time. I bet we’d make the local news and become F-list celebrities. Do you think they’d let us skip the line at Olive Garden? I’m gonna make it rain breadsticks!”

The street we’re on is lined with bars and crowded with throngs of college students, home for winter break and avoiding their families. Christmas lights adorn every window, and bouncers stand guard outside the doors, waiting to be called forth to banish riffraff like myself. Not Cake and Blondie seem determined to get me out of here, though, and I trot along between them, breathing in the refreshing aroma of mozzarella sticks and urine.

“Okay,” says Blondie when we turn the corner and find ourselves in a more civilized part of town, one with more restaurants and boutiques, fewer puddles of questionable composition. She takes my shoulders and pushes me down on a bench. “Sit, Sophie. I mean it.” And then she takes out her phone, frowning at the screen.

“Are you going to share why you’ve decided to trash yourliver tonight?” asks Not Cake, plopping down beside me and rubbing her ungloved hands together.

It’s cold enough that vapor from our breath curls through the evening air, but I’m not as cold as I should be. I peer over at her. “I thought it was too healthy. Getting cheeky from all that green juice and yoga. It needed a fire drill. Nobody needs some wimpy-ass-bitch liver.”

Not Cake looks to Blondie. “You really need some video documentation of this. You’re missing out on some truly unparalleled blackmail material, Honor.”

Ignoring them, I let my head drop back over the edge of the bench, staring up. It’s too bright here to make out the stars, but the glow from the Christmas tree in the nearest shop window creates a pretty, blurring effect against the black sky. I stare at it for a while, listening to the rumble of traffic and the voices of people entering the nearest restaurant.

I feel strangely outside it all. This woman is an island, one of the pathetic, lovelorn, and way too drunk.

“Okay. Cars on its way,” Blondie reports, and movement in the corner of my eye suggests she’s taken the empty stretch of bench on my other side. Reaching into my purse, I pull out a water bottle and take a swig, wincing at the burn as it goes down my throat.

What the hell did I put in here? Oh, right. Vodka. I take another swig.

“Oh, my god! Is that booze?” Not Cake snatches the bottle from my hand and sniffs it. “Jesus! Sophie!”

I flip off Blondie when she takes the bottle from Not Cake and throws it into the trash can a few yards away. “That’s very wasteful.” I yawn, stretching. “Can we go to Illegal-Narcotics-R-Us, now? It looks like getting pregnant is off the table since my taste in men is unavailable.”

Something tells me I shouldn’t have said that. The confused expressions on my companions’ faces confirm it.

“Wait, you haven’t told us about anyone,” says Blondie reproachfully. But before she can question me further, her gaze seems to catch on something on the sidewalk behind us. “Actually, hold that thought. I think that’s Dad. Hey! Dad!”

Too fast, I turn, staring in horror at the man walking down the sidewalk toward us. He’s tall, his brown hair tousled by the evening breeze, and so handsome it makes my teeth ache. He isn’t alone. A beautiful older woman is at his side, her red-painted lips split into a smile right at him, like she’s having the time of her freaking life. His hand rests on the small of her back, guiding her down the sidewalk.

With the same kind of abrupt shock as having ice water thrown in my face, the world seems to right itself. My stomach rolls. My head spins. My chest cracks down the middle.

Time is moving much slower than normal as he turns our way, smile falling as his gaze finds first Honor, then me. The hand on the small of the woman’s back falls to his side, and I stare at the space between them where it was, gripped by a sudden bone-deep cold that wasn’t present a moment ago.

“Hey, girls,” he clears his throat, “small world.”

Not Cake—Leni—is looking at me, her brows bunched together.

“I know, right!” laughs Blondie—Honor—brightly. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met before,” she addresses the woman at her father’s side.

Bram clears his throat again . “No. You haven’t. Rebecca, these are my daughters, Honor and Lenora.” He laughs a little, uncomfortably. “Girls, this is a friend of mine, Rebecca.”

A friend? What are we, twelve? Honor and Len just caught their dad on a date. Their hot, rich, single, very eligible bachelor father is out on a date with a woman who looks like she has a ten-step skincare routine and knowswhere to buy a 401k. The woman is wearing high heels and a coat that is obviously dry clean only. She has her shit together.

“Nice to meet you,” say Honor and Leni, perfectly polite and not at all fazed by this.

Bram continues, still not looking at me, “And this is Honor’s roommate, Sophie, who is also one of my colleagues.” As he says my name, his gaze lifts to meet mine, and I feel the familiar lurch of desire that sprung up from time to time in college, and then an awful lot more after I was hired at his firm.

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