Page 76 of Crazy About Love (All About Love)

Except for the lightbulb over my head.

I turn around as quick as humanly possible and storm toward Alec, running into shoulders and boobs and many other body parts. The club buzzes with groans and laughter in equal measure, and I prick my ears for that one laugh I’m so familiar with. I can hear it, I can, and I follow the sound, blindly searching for what’s literally right in front of me.

An arm knocks into my stomach, and I cough from the force, eyes watering.

“Sorry,” I hear from my right, and my cough turns into a gasp. It’s Alec, right there next to me, and I reach out without thinking. I get a good grip on soft fabric, and without another thought I pull him toward me.

“Alec?” I say, and I feel him shift in my hold, stepping closer to me. He doesn’t smell right, but I did cover him in food at his last stop and the mixture of odors in the club is messing with my nose. A hand runs up my arm and cradles my face, a thumb tumbling over my lips. My heart beats completely out of my chest, and I let out a large sigh, relieved that he’s finally in my grasp, alone. Well…alone enough. I can pretend here in the dark, and it makes it easier.

“Let me say this to you, please,” I say over the noise of the still-buzzed crowd. “When the lights come back on we can deal with who you’re actually here with. But Alec, it was supposed to be me. I asked you to do the auction soIcould bid on you. I love you, and I’m tired of being just friends. I’m ready for more if you’re ready for mo—”

“Oh yeah, baby, I’m ready,” the owner of the thumb on my cheek says, and sudden dread and a wash of fresh embarrassment rush through my stomach. I jerk away from the foreign touch, ramming into someone behind me. I fumble around for my phone, clicking it on and switching on the flashlight. The guy in front of me has long hair and looks more like Mick Jagger than Alec.

“Oh dear God,” I choke out, rushing away into the blackness of the club to get as far away from fake Alec as possible. I’m completely turned around and have no clue where I am in relation to the front door, let alone Alec and Rian. Once people see that I have my phone’s flashlight on, they start pulling theirs out to light the room, but even with all that, I can’t locate Alec, and I can’t find Liz either.

I sigh and push through, hoping I’m headed toward an exit. I end up being three steps away from one. Stepping out into the fresh air, I’m quickly reminded of why I need a jacket tonight, and I’m grateful I kept mine on. I yank out my red scarf and wrap it around my neck as I search the area. I step around the corner and onto a side street where there are cabs and one big-ass limo parked along the curb. A few feet down the street is Liz in her puffy pink coat, crouched down and breathing like she’s about to give birth. Her eyes connect with mine and her brow pulls down.

“You’re supposed to be kissing Alec right now,” she says, her tone annoyed and frustrated, and I find my hackles rising defensively.

“I professed my love to some random asswipe becausesomeonedidn’t tell me what she was doing.”

She stands up straight, her mouth a thin line. The paleness of her skin is really scaring the hell out of me.

“Itoldyou what to do. All you had to do was go straight forward.” She extends an arm. “Five, six steps and you’d have had him. But no. You started following me like a dumbass.”

“What did you just call me?” I spit out at her. She ignores me.

“I told you to grab him!”

“You didn’t tell me I’d be blind doing it!”

“Look, you wanted help with this whole grand gesture, and I’m helping you. I should get a little gratitude, damn it. I gave you your opening, but you blew it. Now we’ve got to follow them to the next activity and try to stop them from tonguing in front of your fragile ego.”

“Youtalked me into this crazy shit.” I point accusingly at her, heat storming inside me. Liz and I have fought many times—it happens when you’re friends for over twenty years—so I know she’s just blowing off steam and this really isn’t about me. But I’m not in the mood to be her stress recipient.

Her eyes start watering and she wipes furiously at them. “I didn’t expect you to muck it up.”

“Will you stop yelling at me?” I throw my hands into the air. “God, you sound like Shay with all her pregnancy hormones.”

Her expression softens so quickly I immediately regret my outburst. “Well…I mean…I am late,” she murmurs.

Shocked, I can’t say anything for a second. When I finally find my voice, I sputter, “What?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she quickly puts in. “Like, I’ve been late before. All the time now, actually. Every month for seven months, late, late, and, you know, negative test results, then bam—a period. But I mean, it’s later than normal this time. And my boobs hurt and I’m nauseous, but not in the morning, I’m nauseous at night. Like right now I feel like I could puke in the gutter with all the boozies, and my feet hurt and I just cry at nothing and everything—”

“Liz!” I gasp, trying to contain my sudden grin. Forget our stupid fight. This is what she’s wanted for so so long, and she just might be…

She widens her eyes and points at me accusingly, as if my joy is utterly blasphemous.

“No! It doesn’t mean anything. Ican’tthink that it’ll mean something. There are other reasons for it. PMS makes boobs hurt and emotions run wild, and I just can’t do another month of hoping and thinking that no period means a baby and then have nothing but one line on that damn test, and I can’t look at Landon again and tell him that there’s nothing in there but an empty uterus and a broken egg, and I don’t want to go through it anymore, I don’t want to, I don’t…”

I pull her into my arms, my shoulder muffling her sobs. After she moved to California, I felt sorry for myself, wishing she were here for me, but now all I wish is that I’d been there for her. She’d only briefly touched on the subject of trying to start a family, and never mentioned the heartbreaking disappointment she felt every month when she pulled a negative pregnancy test. She’d always joked about it, saying that she’d just get to try more sex in the upcoming month. I should’ve known there was something she was hiding underneath the optimism.

“Go home,” I tell her. She sniffs and pulls back.

“I’m fine. Just emotional.”

“Go home and take a test. If there’s no baby this time, it doesn’t mean there won’t ever be, okay?”

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