Page 9 of Right With You
Exhaling all of those messy thoughts out, I perked up and grabbed the phone, launching from the chair and hustling to the bathroom as I read the group chat pinging away. My friends were hyping each other up, clearly all more than ready for the weekend.
Except Jess, who couldn’t drink or stand the smell of beer, and who was still struggling on and off with severe morning sickness and low energy, poor thing.
Dove called as I pulled out my makeup to give myself a refresh.
“Tell me you’re coming and staying,” she said, her sweet voice ragged through the speaker.
“I am. Are you? Are you sick?” I asked, swiping on some mascara, which I hadn’t bothered with yet today.
“No, just dragging,” she said, then chatted through her day while I continued getting prepped, jumping off once we were both ready to head out.
Why was I putting mascara on to meet my girlfriends? First, there was such a thing as dressing for oneself. Feeling good in one’s skin. Liking the way one looked when one spent a fair amount of time with one’s hair in a ponytail and one’s clothes covered by a bright pink Glazed apron perfumed with the combined scent of fried dough and frosting.
So yes, I wanted to feel a little less schlubby and a little more put together.
But also… Luc would be there.
Our interaction after he’d stepped in with Callum didn’t mean we’d talk or… do anything other than maybe make eye contact a time or two. I hadn’t seen the man since the incident earlier this week. Kind of odd, so maybe he was avoiding me? More likely, he had work obligations pop up. It wasn’t unheard of for him to go a few days between visits to the shop.
If I saw him tonight, not that I was counting on it at all, I’d ask him about the whole calling himself my boyfriend thing. I mean, it was situational, obviously, but it merited a conversation between us. Didn’t it?
Still. Even if he wouldn’t be there tonight, couldn’t a girl want to look decent after a day slogging through boring emails and tasks?
Yes, she could.
Saint Security, Luc’s employer and the entity where a few of my friends, and many of their partners worked, held a weekly cocktail hour where they socialized and let off steam. This worked perfectly since our girl group met at the same time, and many of us had paired off with Saint men to do the whole happily ever after thing.
Nikki, Winnie, Jo, Jess, and now our newest baddie babe Liz were all tethered to Saint men in various states of dating, engagement, marriage, child-growing. And God bless them. May their rings shine brightly and their wombs grow with… fruitfulness? Whatever. I was genuinely thrilled for everyone who’d found their person. Seeing the way these men loved their women gave me hope that good men still existed. Not even hope—it gave me proof.
As I loaded into my car, I reminded myself that it didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t heading down the same path. I thought I’d found the man for me in Callum. He’d had everything going for him, perfect on paper and even at first glance. Good looks, a secure job, the whole slick corporate former frat boy vibe to him. Somehow, I’d convinced myself he was right for me. I’d thought it even when we fought, even when he started finding fault with small things that then turned into essential things like how many moles I had or the size of my feet. I persisted in believing we were right for each other the first time he grabbed my arm so hard it left a bruise within hours. And when he convinced me to give him another try, that he’d changed.
At some point, the ignorance fell away and I said no. It was sometime after Adam nearly took a bullet for Jo, or maybe when my mom took off to Florida with her latest husband. It finally clicked, and I wouldn’t look back.
I wouldn’t get back together with Callum—not again—and I wouldn’t fall for the charming man sweeping me off my feet thing again. I’d even struggled to enjoy romance novels lately, instead favoring thrillers and books on business or time management to the happily ever afters I’d lived off of for years.
I’d quite literally lost that lovin’ feeling, and I honestly didn’t mind. It was more fun—and far less treacherous—to make up stories in my head or watch movies or worry about the fungal spawn causing an apocalypse than anything a real-life man could induce me to.
Shedding those heavy thoughts, I made my way inside Craic, ready to focus on my friends.
“Good to see you, Elise.”
I gasped, Luc’s low, smooth voice sending a thrill up my spine. I turned and braced myself for the sight of him—oof, direct hit—and nodded. “Luc.”
Then I kept walking.
Because lingering near that man was not an option.
The first time since breaking up with Callum I’d felt something in my cold, dead little heart of stone had been for him, and it continued to react like this mattered. Fortunately, I’d learned my heart was not to be trusted when it came to the male species, and therefore I ignored the little floor routine going on in my chest and hustled to the table where my friends were.
Think of the fungal spawn, Elise. Think of the zombies!
“I tell you, that man is just pretty. And I mean that in the most masculine, Calvin Klein underwear model type of way,” Dove said, raising a glass of water to the middle of the table.
Catherine chuckled softly and said nothing but touched her glass to Dove’s. Nikki, Winnie, and Jo laughed and took sips of their drinks but didn’t join in the toast.
“Come on, you know you want to.” Dove waggled her brows and held her glass aloft, waiting.
I grunted, accepted a beer someone had poured, and clinked my glass with hers.
