Page 30 of One More Shot
Sasha falls silent and, for a moment, I think I’ve won this little battle between us. But then she rises from the floor and comes over to my desk. She drapes her arms around my shoulders and squeezes gently.
‘Connor was a dick,’ she says softly.
I snort. ‘The worst.’
She hums in agreement. ‘But you can’t—’
I cut her off, because I know what she’s going to say. It’s the same thing she’s said the hundred other times we’ve had this exact same conversation. ‘I can’t write everyone off just because of him?’
‘Exactly.’
I sigh and pull away from her touch. ‘But it wasn’t just him, was it?’
Connor, my last long-term relationship, was just the tip of the iceberg. He might’ve been the cruellest; the one to spit that I might not be such afrigid bitchand actually enjoy sex if I ‘just bothered to lose some weight’, but he wasn’t unique.
There was Aaron before him, who’d regularly insist that I was withholding orgasms as a way to punishhimfor something and would retaliate by giving me the silent treatment.
And Jamal, who refused to even try to use toys with me because, in some weird and twisted way, he thought it was ‘cheating’.
And Jada before him, who was the first – but not the last – to suggest that maybe there is actually something wrong with me because she’d never not made a girl come before.
And too many names before her.
I started enforcing my rule after Connor and, while mysex life has been thoroughly unsatisfying ever since – not that it was anything to shout about before – the lack of heartbreak or pain has definitely made up for it.
‘Dane is off the table,’ I say firmly.
But Sasha looks unconvinced, and honestly? I am too.
Chapter ElevenDANE
Let it never be said that Dane Clarke isn’t a good brother and friend.
Thebest, even.
Because I’ve cancelled a date tonight in favour of sitting at Cash and Bailey’s kitchen table, stuffing invitations into envelopes. To be fair to them, I probably would’ve cancelled the date, anyway. I arranged it more out of habit than anything else – I think it’s been literally years since I spent a Friday night alone – but I’m happy to use the wedding invitations as an excuse.
We’ve been at it for the last two hours, and the pile Bailey unceremoniously dumped in front of me the second I sat down hasn’t seemed to decrease in the slightest.
‘There’s no way you guys know this many people,’ I grumble as I seal up an envelope addressed to aPatrick and Joan Clarke. ‘And who the hell are these two?’
Bailey glances at the invitation. ‘I think Patrick is one of Dad’s cousins. Maybe a great uncle? I’m not too sure.’
I can confidently say I’ve never met cousin/maybe-uncle Patrick in my life. And if I haven’t, I doubt Bailey has either. ‘But you’re inviting them to the wedding?’
She shrugs. ‘It’s more about keeping the peace. We’re not expecting everyone to come.’
‘Banking on it, actually,’ Cash adds with a wry grin.
‘They won’t,’ Bailey says confidently. ‘Patrick and Joan aren’t going to fly from Canada to Italy for a four-day weekend.’ She gestures to my pile. ‘Most of those are for family who live abroad. They’re just getting invited to keep Mum, Dad and Cash’s mum happy. They won’t actually come.’
Everything I learn about wedding planning turns me further and further off the idea. That and the fact that the whole ‘falling so deeply in love with someone that you actively want to spend the rest of your life with them’ thing is still fundamentally incomprehensible in my mind.
‘If I ever get married, don’t expect any of this,’ I say, reaching for the next invitation and envelope. ‘Actually, I might just turn up with a wife one day, and that’ll be it. Still send gifts though.’
Bailey snorts. ‘If you ever get married, I think Mum’ll have a heart attack on the spot.’
‘Why?’ I ask, pretending to be offended. ‘I could get married.’
