Wild Man (Dream Man #2)(14)

“Ohmigod, I’m so gonna kill Tracy for this. I didn’t like Ada even before that bitch hooked up with Vic. But this party is so bad, if ex-prisoners of war attended it, they’d reminisce nostalgically about the days shit was shoved up their fingernails,” Camille muttered.

“Have you seen Vic?” Gwen asked Camille and got a head shake to her question so she continued, “Shadow of his former self. He used to live and breathe Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies and his vintage Chevy Chevelle. Now he’s wearing button-downs instead of Elway jerseys and driving a minivan and Ada hasn’t even popped that kid out yet.”

“Poor Vic,” Martha muttered.

“Poor Vic, my ass,” Elvira stated while pouring vodka in her shaker. “Needs to man up, take charge of his woman.” Her eyes sliced through Camille and Gwen and she proclaimed,

“You bitches know what I’m sayin’.”

Both “bitches” nodded in a way I found interesting since they clearly did know what she was saying and I did not and wanted to know more but before I could ask I heard the sliding glass door open. I twisted to look as it closed and saw the gorgeous, glamorous Tracy carrying two big glasses filled with ice strutting out like she was on a catwalk and not on a picture perfect back deck.

“Okay, just gotta say, I’m glad we’re out here because I wanna know what the frig is up with you.” I heard Martha say and I looked to her to see she was looking at me and therefore talking to me.

This was probably not good.

Martha was Elvira’s height which was to say five foot four. She was also now taller than me for I was wearing a pair of flip-flops with a black base and glittery silver on the straps and she was wearing a pair of platform pumps with a six inch heel and two inch platform. She was rounded just right, had curly dark brown hair that looked fabulous against her pale skin and bright blue eyes. She also knew me better than anyone in this world (or, at least, the parts I let her know). She was always late, she was always in a tizzy, her life was always filled with drama but I loved her and she loved me, always and forever, no matter what. I’d been through the thick and the thin with her, all of it, and there was a lot of it, riding her killer waves, holding her hand the whole time and she was grateful for it and didn’t have a problem with letting that show.

That said, although she could be immensely gentle, insightful and thoughtful, that didn’t mean when she had something to say, even if that something might be uncomfortable, she didn’t say it.

Which I was getting the sense she was gearing up to do now.

So I asked a fake innocent, “What?”

“What?” she asked back, not buying my fake innocent for a second and I knew this when her eyebrows shot up and she kept speaking. “Girl, I walked into your house and you had a face… a face…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what was up with your face and you still got that face.” Then, as if I didn’t know what a face was, she lifted a finger and jabbed it toward mine going on as she dropped it. “All I know is, three months you’ve been hell on wheels, no one could keep up with you and now you look all foggy like you’re living in a dreamworld.”

Damn.

I really needed to remember that even as Martha lived out her ever-present drama, that didn’t mean she didn’t pay attention.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.

“Sure you do,” Elvira stated, dumping ice into her cocktail shaker.

“Uh…” I mumbled to Elvira, a little surprised since I’d met her an hour before and she couldn’t know anything about me especially not about this.

“I got the gift,” Elvira informed me, answering my unasked question. “Can read people’s faces.” She topped the cocktail shaker and started shaking. “And yours is sayin’ you know exactly what your homegirl is talkin’ about.”

Oh crap.

I felt all eyes on me but it was Martha who spoke next.

“All right, Tess, I backed off because you know I did not like that Jake but that look on your face, I’m done backing off.”

Oh crap.

At this point Martha looked to the beauty parade of women around the table and shared,

“She got hooked up with this guy… hot and when I say hot I mean,” she licked her finger then sliced it through the air making a sizzle noise and went on, “smokin’ hot. But bad news.”

It was safe to say I didn’t want to talk about this at all but it was safer to say that I didn’t want to talk about this drinking clandestine cosmos on Ada’s picture perfect back deck with a bunch of women I didn’t know during a very badly hosted baby shower I didn’t want to be at but instead I wanted to be home preparing for nine o’clock when Brock would be back and we would be talking.

Therefore, I started, “Martha –”

“No, girl,” Martha cut me off, lifting a hand in my face to which Elvira muttered, “Oh shit, this is serious. She’s givin’ the hand.”

Martha continued, dropping her hand and looking back at the bevy of beauties. “This guy had it all, the walk, the voice, the hair, the ass, kid you not, I’d sell my soul just to run my fingers along his forearms,” she leaned in and semi-whispered, “he’s got these veins that pop out on his hands and forearms, freaking delicious. ”