Page 73 of For the Boys
Berkley giggled, sliding into a seat next to Grace. “Damn, that felt good.”
“You waited about five years too long to do that, honestly,” her friend Audrey said. “You should have done that the second you found out he cheated on you.”
Damn right she should have. There were quite a few things she should’ve done differently when it came to Lee, like leaving him before things had got so screwed up. Before she had her heart broken.
But there was no going back, and in the end, that relationship had been a good learning experience. Now, she knew exactly what she deserved, and would settle for nothing less.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed in her clutch. Pulling it out, she answered, shouting over the music.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Berkley,” Brent said. “Where are you?”
“Hi!” she yelled. “I’m at this bar called Atrium!”
“Okay. I’m—”
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Hold on!” She walked down the short hallway and into the restroom, where the noise level dropped significantly.
“Okay, that’s better.”
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“Definitely,” she told him, turning to the mirror to check her makeup. “But I wish you were here.”
“Me too. But I just wanted to hear your voice. Go have fun!”
“Okay. Miss you.”
“Miss you too,” he said, then hung up.
Unable to hide the grin on her face, she walked back to the table.
“Nice phone call?” her friend Justin asked. She then felt obligated to tell everyone at the table that she, Berkley Daniels, had finally started dating again.
“Don’t make a big deal of it,” she said. “We haven’t been together that long. But I’m happy.” Once everyone at the table had congratulated her, she got up to get another round of drinks.
The bartender set the drinks in front of her, and while she was digging around in her purse for her chapstick, she felt someone press against her back for the second time that night.
“Lee, I swear… Don’t make me waste another drink on you.”
“Who the hell is Lee?”
Berkley whipped around.
Brent grinned. “Surprise?”
“I’m going to kill you one of these days if you keep doing this to me,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. The citrus and woodsy scent of him wrapped itself around her, instantly quelling the distress over her confrontation with Lee.
Quickly she pulled away and glared at him. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“I have a concussion, Berkley, not a broken bone. Plus I really wanted to see you, and I didn’t want to wait until you came back next week.”
He grabbed half of the drinks to help her bring them back to the table.
“Okay, but you really shouldn’t be drinking,” she told him. “Promise me?”
“I promise.”
