Reckless Abandon (November Blue, #2)(22)



“I guess.” I shrug. “Listen, I’m exhausted, and I have a long week of work coming up. Are we still playing here every other

week?” I question Josh. I want to make sure I can hang out with Adrian this weekend.

“Yeah. Let’s rehearse Tuesday, since you’ll be in Concord Wednesday through Friday. Sound good, Regan?” Josh nods in Regan’s

direction, whose studious eyes never leave mine.

“See you Tuesday.” Regan smiles through his words as I walk away.

Monica follows me to the parking lot, but I don’t notice until I’m almost at my car.

“Ember.”

I turn around to find her standing cross-armed. “Yeah?”

“What’s going on with Adrian?”

“What do you mean?” I walk back toward her.

“Don’t treat me like I’m dumb—I’m your best friend. I see what’s going on, but I don’t know why you’re not telling me.”

Her face twists in hurt.

“Monica,” I sigh, “I’m not intentionally keeping anything from you. I just don’t know what’s going on yet, so there’s not

really anything to talk about.”

“Can we talk about the fact that his car was in front of your apartment this morning?”

Damn.

“We can, but nothing happened. I swear. Look, Mon. It’s comfortable with him. There aren’t any surprises and we’ve got history.

” I leave out the part about our hot make-out session in my living room.

“Fine. Now, I get that you’re all guarded now because of what happened with Bo, but you can’t keep stuff from me. That’s not

what best friends do.”

She’s right.

“You’re right, Mon. I’m sorry. As soon as there’s something to tell, I’ll tell you.”

Monica stares at me, picking through my brain with her eyes before releasing a frustrated sigh. “Just be careful, OK? Oh! Josh and

I are going away Friday to my parents’ house, so I have to drive separately to Concord on Wednesday.”

“That’s fine.” I shrug nonchalantly while silently thanking whatever powers arranged that. Now I won’t have to tell her about

going to Adrian’s on Friday.

“Night.” Monica turns back to Finnegan’s.

“Night.”





Chapter Nine



The first part of this week has been a total bitch. Carrie placed interns with Monica and me in our offices, and handed them the

rest of our workloads so we can focus “one hundred percent” on the DROP collaboration. This means that yesterday and today I’ve

had to put up with oh-so-many questions from college seniors that I know for a fact I wasn’t annoying enough to ask when I was in

their shoes.

“Don’t friend potential contacts on Facebook. In fact, you need to make yourself as private as possible on that damn site,” I

huff as I walk over to the computer to adjust the intern’s privacy settings.

“Or you could not have an account at all, like Ember,” Monica chirps as she walks in.

The intern contorts her face in a mix of horror and disgust. “You don’t have a Facebook account at all?”

Monica and I laugh and shake our heads as I try to offer an explanation.

“Believe it or not, when we were in college it was only available for college students. Period. Now that they let any old cat in,

I’ve lost interest.” I finish adjusting her settings before letting her go for the day. “Oh, Zoe? One more thing.” I tap the

screen at one of her photo albums. “Regardless of your privacy settings, just, please, never take pictures like these again. If

you don’t put them on the internet, someone else will, OK? If you wouldn’t show your grandmother, don’t show the world. And, if

you would show your grandmother...I need to meet her for drinks.” I chuckle.

She turns white and crimson at the same time. “OK. Goodnight.” She leaves quickly.

“You are such an *.” Monica slaps the back of my head.

“Oh, am I? We need to see some girl using Zoe’s belly button as a shot glass?”

We burst into a laughter that’s eluded us over the last couple of weeks. Monica’s seemed a little distant since I started back at

work. Things with her and Josh are going well and I want her to talk about it, but she seems hesitant to brag about her bliss.

Also, while she’s not thrilled with Adrian’s reappearance in my life, she’s upset that I won’t talk about him with her just the

same. It’s made things a little tense, and I don’t really see the tension dying down any time soon since we’re going to be in

Concord for the rest of the week.

Within an hour after leaving work, I’m at Finnegan’s for our weekly rehearsal. I’m the last one here since, apparently, I’m the

only one with a day job.

“What took you so long?” C.J. grumbles behind his set.

“Some of us work, Ceej.” I toss my backpack on the closest table and hop up on stage. “You’ll have to forgive him,” I turn to

Regan while pointing to C.J., “he’s an *. But I guess you knew that since you’re his cousin and all.” Regan hoots as C.J.

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