Luke.
There was only so much a guy could take. After I worked a full day, Baker and I went to the grocery store to pick up a six-pack of beer to have at the apartment before we hit up the bar. Of course, we had to run into Rainey and Gabby.
"h.e.l.lo, ladies," Baker crooned as we approached them.
It was always a guarantee to see someone we knew in the grocery store, but did it have to be them?
"I thought you girls were helping Mallory?" I asked.
"We are. We decided to have a slumber party!" Gabby shrieked.
She had such a bubbly personality. I couldn"t wait to find out from Wolfe why they were getting a divorce.
"Oh, that"s ... fun," Baker said. He grinned and lifted one brow at Rainey. "Pillow fights and everything, Sugar?"
"Oh yeah," Rainey answered in a serious tone, and then her voice dropped low and seductive. "There might even be some girl on girl action."
"What?!" Baker screamed.
When Rainey and Gabby both laughed aloud, I joined in.
"You"re too easy, Baker. It"s going to be a mellow night. You guys going to get drunk in Luke"s apartment?" She spotted the six-pack in my hand.
"We"re just getting primed for The Landing," Baker said.
I hit his arm. They didn"t need to know where we were headed. I didn"t want them to show up. Wolfe would be p.i.s.sed if they did.
"That sounds like fun," Gabby said.
I glanced at the basket she was carrying and noticed there were a variety of chocolates, chips, and sodas inside. "Aren"t you girls a little old for a slumber party?"
"Aren"t you girls a little old to binge drink like a bunch of teenagers?" Rainey retorted.
I laughed.
"Way too old," Baker commented. "But if you want to join us at the bar, Sugar, we"d be happy to have you."
Rainey laughed but I noticed Gabby looked stiff. She rolled her eyes at the attention Baker gave Rainey.
"Well, have fun. We"ve got popcorn to buy," Gabby said as she led Rainey away.
"Have a good night, girls," I called out. I turned to Baker. "Way to go, man. You weren"t supposed to give them our itinerary."
"Whatever, Wolfe doesn"t scare me. Besides, there"s no way Mallory is leaving her dad, and those two will stay by her side tonight, just like we planned. Come on, let"s check out," he said.
I followed him to the check out.
We were sitting in my apartment twenty minutes later when my phone rang. It was Wolfe.
"Hey, are you guys at your place?" he asked.
"Yeah. Are you out of work early? You should come by. We"ll head to the bar later," I said.
"Alright. I"ll be over in a few. Do you need me to pick up some beer?"
I looked at the six-pack Baker fiddled with, taking his second beer already. "Yeah, grab a twelve-pack, at least."
"Sure thing. See you in a bit." He hung up.
"That was Wolfe. He"s going to come have a beer," I informed Baker.
"I hope the girls have left the store already," he muttered.
I had a feeling Wolfe wasn"t that lucky. Instead of warning him, though, I picked up the Xbox controller and challenged Baker to my latest zombie game.
Several minutes later, Wolfe pounded on my front door.
"It"s open," I called out.
Baker and I were engrossed in the game and neither of us looked up when he came in.
"Hey, a.s.sholes," Wolfe muttered after a few minutes went by.
I paused the game and we both turned to look at him. He was holding a frozen steak from my freezer against his face. I glanced at Baker to gauge his reaction but he was grinning like an idiot.
"What happened?"
I put down the controller and got up to examine Wolfe"s face. His cheek and eye were swollen. I held in my laughter.
"Gabriella Peterman happened," he muttered. "She and Rainey were at the grocery store when I got there. I tried to be polite and Gabby hauled off and decked me!"
I burst out laughing.
"What did you say?" Baker asked while I tried to regain my composure.
"I told Rainey how good she looked and that it was nice to see her." His voice rose like a child"s when forced to explain his behavior to a parent.
"What were your exact words?" I asked between fits of laughter.
"I think I said, "It"s good to see you, Rainey. d.a.m.n, girl, you"re looking good." What"s wrong with that?"
Man, he was dense, I thought.
"You told your ex-wife"s best friend that she was looking hot in front of your ex-wife? Are you insane? You"re lucky you still have an eye." Baker sneered.
"She"s not my ex-wife. Yet. And are you kidding me? She left me. Why the h.e.l.l does she care who I pay compliments to?"
We didn"t have an answer for him, so I found him a bag of peas for his eye and then cracked him open a beer.
"Women are d.a.m.ned complicated," he said once we were all back in my living room.
He wasn"t wrong.
"Women are nuts," Baker remarked. "We"ll never understand them for as long as we live."
"I"ll toast to that," I said. We clinked our bottles and each of us took a long swallow. "So what"s up with you and Rainey, anyway?" I asked Baker.
"I don"t know. That woman is something else. She seems interested, but then she keeps telling me she"s going back to LA soon. I don"t know what to think." He sounded deflated. "But I want to know what happened with Wolfe and Gabby."
Wolfe groaned. "Can we please not talk about me and Gabby?"
"No way. Spill it," I insisted.
"We were young when we got married, you guys know that. h.e.l.l, she was barely eighteen and we only waited a few weeks to have the wedding. Everything was great at first, but then I missed Florida. So I told her I wanted to go down and spend a few weeks there for vacation and she flipped out. She said I didn"t want to live in Casper anymore and once we got down there, I would try to trap her into staying. It was insane."
"I finally convinced her I didn"t want to move down there permanently, but I don"t think she ever really believed me. For months, she would mention moving to Florida and I always ignored it, because I didn"t want to fuel the fire. It made things between us tense, but we worked through it. Even if we never actually got over it. Last Christmas, I told her I wanted to spend Christmas with my parents in Florida and she dropped the bomb on me. She told me she wanted a divorce. I never saw it coming."
"d.a.m.n, dude, that sucks. Did she give you a reason?" Baker asked.
"Not really. She did explain that the court system demanded a one-year separation before they"ll grant us a divorce, so we"ve been separated. I moved out of the house two weeks before Christmas," Wolfe said.
"That"s a downer," Baker said. "Women are crazy."
"It"s after six. Let"s head to the bar," I suggested.
I couldn"t believe their marriage had fallen apart in this town and yet I"d never heard a single story about it. They were both good at keeping the details close to home, apparently.
The Landing was full of people when we arrived. We found a table in the back and ordered hot wings and three bottles of beer. The Red Sox were playing on the TV, so conversation was limited. Our server kept our plates full of hot wings and brought us fresh bottles of beer as soon as we were close to being out.
Before we knew it, there was a lot more breathing room and the three of us were buzzed. The conversation picked up again and immediately went to the women in our lives.
"What"s with Rainey, anyway?" Baker asked. "She leads me on and then backs away. She"s a tease." He grunted then took a swig off his beer.
"Mallory isn"t any better," I said. "I almost kissed her and then for both our sakes, I pulled back. Then she went and told my girlfriend. How f.u.c.ked up is that?"
"At least you guys have the chance to make a move! Gabby is gone and I don"t think we"ll ever get together again!" Wolfe said.
"What a bunch of Sally"s we are," Baker said. "We need to swear off these d.a.m.n women. They"re s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up our lives and we don"t need them."
"Yeah."
Wolfe and I cheered. Our beer bottles clinked.
When the bar manager approached our table, I knew we were in trouble. Baker might be the owner, but the manager on duty had the authority, especially when the owner was drunk.
"Who"s driving you home, guys?" he asked us.
None of us had an answer. We were all pretty drunk at that point.
"Well, then, who should I call?"
It was after eleven and The Landing was getting ready to close.
I gave the owner Mallory"s home number without a second thought. One of the girls would be willing to drive us home, wouldn"t they? It wasn"t like all three of them hated all three of us. Rainey would bring us home, I was sure of it.
ELEVEN.
Mallory.
The girls spent the entire afternoon getting things ready for the slumber party. Or, at least, that"s what Rainey said when she called around four.
"Hey, we"re going to pack a bag for Gabby and then hit up the video store and the grocery store. We won"t be over until about six or so. You"ll be okay, right?"
"Of course. My dad is an easy patient," I said as I looked in on him.
He was asleep again.
Rainey hung up and I went into the kitchen and tried to busy myself. The one thing I couldn"t get accustomed to was the quiet. In Boston, there was noise at all hours of the day, even in the middle of the night. But in Casper, you had to create noise if you couldn"t stand the quiet.
The silence weighed heavily on my shoulders. It drove me insane until I flipped on the radio. I grabbed some supplies from underneath the sink and began to clean every surface in the kitchen. Every time I needed to think, really think, I would scrub the kitchen in Boston. Eventually, my roommates learned to leave me alone during those times. Although they pretty much left me alone whenever they could. I liked to brood and they perceived it as moodiness. I sighed as I pulled on the bright yellow gloves and sprayed the counters with the cleaner.
Boston wasn"t as much fun as I remembered. Now that I wasn"t living in the crazy city, I could see how much I"d been missing in my life. Friends like Gabby and Rainey were nowhere to be seen in the big city. A possible love interest like Luke was out of the question. Even a funny guy like Baker was hard to find. As much as I didn"t want to admit it, I missed Casper and the people in it. I"d missed my dad the most, though, and he was on his deathbed. Why did I have to be so d.a.m.n stupid and refuse to come home? I should have been here for him.
Thank G.o.d for Luke. He"d stepped up and been a caregiver to Dad whenever Dad needed him. Despite the feelings he had for me, Luke was a good man, just as Dad had told me that morning. There was no denying his morals or convictions. He would give someone the shirt off his back if the other person were in need.
I smiled as I thought about Luke without his shirt off. The years had only enhanced his good looks. He was even more attractive at twenty-three than he"d been at sixteen when I met him. He"d filled out through the torso in a very appealing way. His chest and stomach muscles were well defined. I felt color rush my cheeks.
Then dad called out to me. I switched off the radio and shucked the gloves in the sink. I made my way to his bedroom. Several hours later, Rainey and Gabby showed up with pizza, movies, and three bags of junk food. I laughed when it took them two trips to bring everything inside.
"Are you expecting a crowd?" I asked them.
"You never know," Gabby replied. "We figured your dad had been doing the shopping before you came home, so there wouldn"t be much to eat here. This way, you"re all set for a while."
"Well, thanks, I guess," I said.
A full pantry in Boston meant cans of vegetables and fruit, not bags of potato chips, pretzels, and cookies.