Big Rock(28)

This is the end to my Saturday night. My cat has watched me whack off to a vision of my best friend.

“Don’t say a word,” I hiss.

He looks away, lifting his chin haughtily.

But he’ll keep my secret.

I’ll keep his, too, the f*cking little voyeur.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Let’s pretend I didn’t do that.

Imagine I have amazing self-control and didn’t masturbate to the thought of my business partner last night.

As she orders scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast, and black coffee at Wendy’s Diner the next morning, I can’t help but wonder if she knows she starred in my fantasies, riding me like a cowgirl.

Then reverse cowgirl in the middle of the night, her hair spilling down her spine, my hands on her ass.

In the shower this morning, too. I went down on her then, and she tasted absolutely heavenly coming on my tongue. So, yeah. That’s the thing about slippery slopes. Take that first step, and the next thing you know, you’ve completed a jerk-off hat trick to your bestie.

But I’m on the wagon now. Straight and narrow. Those three times worked like a charm, and I’ve got her out of my system. One hundred percent. Scout’s honor.

She wears a short gray skirt, a purple T-shirt, and her hair is knotted in a loose ponytail. I have no clue what’s on underneath, and I’m not even thinking about her bra and panties. See? I’m cured.

“And for you?” the waitress asks me.

“I’ll have the same. But well-cooked, bordering on burnt for the eggs,” I tell her, and she nods and walks away, past the open kitchen.

The guy at the table next to us turns the page in the New York Post. A prep cook slaps butter on the griddle and it sizzles. The lights shine brightly, revealing every scratch on the faded mint-green Formica table and every nick on the beige tiled floor.

This is the morning after, and as the door opens with a jingle, a quartet of dudes a few years younger than me walk in. They partied too long, and are wildly hungover—it’s obvious in their eyes.

Wendy’s is a stark contrast to Gin Joint’s nighttime enchantment. The diner air is thick with the scent of regret. I don’t know if it’s coming from others, or from Charlotte.

She fiddles with her napkin.

“Head still hurt?” I ask, since she’s quiet today.

She shakes her head. “Totally fine.”

“Water helped?”

She nods. “Always does.”

“Good. But just to be safe, we need the full hangover prevention pack,” I say, since that’s why I took her here. “Nothing rebounds you better after a night of drinking than diner food. It’s a medically proven fact.”

She manages a faint smile, and the waitress returns quickly with the coffee pot, pouring two cups. Charlotte wraps her hands around hers. “Is it now? Even though I didn’t have much to drink.” Her tone is lackluster.

I don’t let it deter me. The more I talk, the more we banter, the better the chance we can get back to who we were before. “There was a study just last week in the Journal—”

“About last night,” she begins, and the wheels of the conversation screech to a halt with those three dreaded words.

But I’m nimble. I know how to dart and dodge. I hold up a hand like a stop sign, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But—”

“No, buts. Everything is fine.”

“What I’m trying to say is—”

“Charlotte, we both had some cocktails, and hey, I get it. I look better to you when you’re wearing beer goggles.” I wink, going for self-deprecating humor because I don’t want her to feel bad in the least for what almost happened.

The corner of her lips quirks up, but that’s all. She’s not wearing lipstick this morning. She hardly has on any makeup. She still looks pretty. She always does, night or day, rain or shine.

“They were gin goggles, but even without them—”

I reach for her hand, wrap mine around it, and squeeze it in a nice friendly gesture. I need to reassure her. “We’re friends. Nothing can change that. Nothing is ever going to get in the way of us being friends. Well, unless you marry a total douche someday. So don’t do that,” I say, flashing my trademark grin and trying desperately to steer this conversation away from us, lest she figure out what my hand has done three times in the last twelve hours.

“Don’t you marry a total bitch,” she says with narrowed eyes, and that’s my Charlotte. She’s back, and she’s just like me. She’s not going to let last night’s weirdness in the cab derail the best relationship either one of us has ever had. Though weirdness might not be the right word. More like hardness, wetness, and hotness. Which are exactly the words I shouldn’t be using as I think about her. “But the thing I wanted to say about last night is about us being friends.”

“Me too!” I say, with far too much enthusiasm, but she’s just uttered the magic words. Friends. Us. I have to latch onto them so we don’t lose sight of what we are. “Our friendship is the most important thing to me, so let’s just keep being friends.”

Her features freeze, as if a mask has slid into place. She fiddles with her ring, and the strangest thing is, my heart seems to beat faster as I watch her play with it. She doesn’t have to be wearing it now, but she is.