Sweet Surrendering (3 page)

“I’m home,” I called as I slipped out of my heels and set my bag down by the door. “You will never believe the kind of day I had,” I said, walking into the kitchen where Sloane was making . . . something.

“Rough day?” she said, handing me a glass of white wine. There were many reasons I loved Sloane, and this was one of them.

“Thank you. Um, you could say that.” I told her everything about the interviews and then started the story about meeting Lucas Blaine as she stirred steaming and bubbling pots and pans on our six burner stove, her dyed blacker-than-night ponytail bobbing around. She’d been on a floral kick lately, and was wearing an ankle-length halter dress with a huge tropical flower print on the front. She’d accented it with chunky gold jewelry and gladiator sandals. I wished I could pull off her outfits, but I just couldn’t.

Sloane was a fashion designer now, but when we’d met, she’d just been a girl from a bad family trying to get through college at an Ivy League university by the skin of her teeth. She’d made it and since then had been building a fashion empire, most of which had been spawned in this very apartment. She was brilliant, passionate and very persuasive, which is how she managed to fund everything. Even Dad wrote her a check. Anonymously, of course. She would never take money from me, and insisted on paying rent and utilities. And having the final say on all decorating decisions. Our place was cozy and cluttered, but everything fit together anyway. Bright and fun, we had lots of knickknacks and throw pillows and picture frames arranged to make the place feel welcoming.

Her blue eyes widened as I told her about Mr. Blaine. I was determined to call him that and not by his first name.

“So yeah. I am not hiring him. No way.” I sipped the last of the wine and poured myself another. I was a bit of a lightweight, but this was a two-glasses-of-wine kind of night.

“Why not? I would. Then you could stare at him all day and pretend it’s for work.”

But how would I get any actual work done?

I sighed and decided to change the subject.

“What are you making?”

“Truffle mac, garlic asparagus, and mango sticky rice for dessert.” In addition to being a fashion genius, Sloane was also an unbelievable cook. She was one of those people who was good at everything she tried. I always told her that she needed to open up her own restaurant, but she didn’t want to. Her heart and soul were in fashion. Cooking was just a hobby.

I used to try to help, but Sloane is a bit of a control freak, and I hadn’t been able to master her stirring technique, even after all the years I’d been trying. So I sat at the bar and rested my forehead against the cool of the granite countertop.

“So you want to go out on Friday? Open mic night at the bar.” She just calls it the bar, because it’s the one we frequent. Any other place is called by name.

“Listening to douches with guitars that think they can sing and girls with too many feelings trying to pour them into crappy lyrics? I am there,” I said, raising my head.

“Oh come on. You’re not still upset about King Douchebag, are you?” Sloane had started calling my ex that, because of the whole cheating thing. It made me laugh, and it was an accurate portrayal, so I called him that too.

“Not really. I just . . . I miss being in a relationship. I miss having something to look forward to. A reason to get pretty.”

“Babe, you don’t need to get pretty for anyone but yourself. How many times have I told you that?”

“Too many to count.” It was true that I could live very easily without a man, and had done so for nearly my entire college career. I’d been too focused on working my way up in the company and maintaining my GPA to deal with guys.

“So we’ll get pretty, you’ll borrow something from my new collection, and we’ll go out and have a girl’s night. Just us. Oh, and Marisol. And Chloe,” she said, taking one of the pots off the heat as she mentioned the other two girls in our little friend group. I’d always found it funny that girls seemed to hang out in groups of four, but it worked.

Through some strange coincidence, all four of us were currently single. That had never happened, and we were taking full advantage of it, having as much fun without worrying about men as possible. Or women, in Chloe’s case.

“I’m in,” I said, finally smiling as she held out a spoon for me to taste.

“That’s my girl. Now, back to this Lucas fellow. I want details, and I want them
right now
.”

This was going to be one of those nights.

After I told Sloane any and every detail of Mr. Lucas Blaine, down to this earring and chin dimple (mmm . . .), I made her let me off the hook by putting in a movie and volunteering to paint her toenails. And, of course, there was more wine involved.

“Have you ever, you know, thought about doing a no strings attached kind of thing? Just to scratch that itch?” she said as I added topcoat with precision.

“Not really. I don’t know if I could have sex with someone without getting my emotions into it. I have a tendency to bond with whoever I’m having sex with.”

Sloane raised her eyebrow, because we both knew that was an understatement.

“Okay, okay. I have issues where that’s concerned, but I don’t think a fuck buddy is going to help any.”

“No, but it would get you laid. I mean, can you imagine how many guys would want to rock your world? Enough to start a waiting list, that’s how many.”

“But they just want to sleep with me to get at my money, or to get to my dad, or whatever.” Been there, done that.

“Well, why don’t you invent a secret identity? Dress down and have a new name and then they wouldn’t know. You could just be a regular girl.”

I’d tried that too. In college for a little while I’d gone by my first and middle name, becoming Rory Abigail, but people had found out anyway. You can’t hide who you are, as much as you try. I’d need witness protection and a serious makeover.

“I don’t know. Maybe being alone will be good for me. I can . . . pick up some new hobbies. Maybe try hot yoga. Or knitting. I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that.”

Sloane rolled her eyes.

“Knitting is no substitute for some quick, dirty sex.” She was right and we both knew it, but thankfully she dropped the topic and shifted to talking (again) about Chloe’s recent (and volatile) breakup with her girlfriend. Let’s just say that Chloe listened to every Miranda Lambert breakup song and acted them all out, including tossing Harmony’s clothes out the window of their apartment. It was like watching a movie, only it was much more horrible when it was real.

I hadn’t been that dramatic when I broke up with Royce. I’d been more stoic, but there had been a lot of crying in the shower and moping, but I was over that. I was ready to move on.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten really intimate with at least ten strangers already,” Sloane said on Friday night as we squeezed our way inside the bar. We were holding hands so we didn’t get shoved around too much. Sloane was in front because she was the tallest, with me bringing up the rear, because I was the shortest, though not by much. Like kids in school holding onto each other when they cross the street.

We squeezed through the crowd, which was a fantastic cross section of Bostonians. Men in pressed suits getting a cold one after a hard day of meetings and yelling at people, and construction workers doing the same in dirty white t-shirts. People who were down on their luck, nursing drinks they couldn’t afford, a bachelorette party that was in full swing, and all kinds of friend groups. It was very much come as you are.

We always went for casual, and I had my favorite jeans on, the dark wash ones that made me look a size smaller than I was, and a bright pink silk top that clung in the right places and was loose in others. My hair was down around my shoulders, but it would be up in the pony band I kept on my wrist in about an hour. I was so used to wearing my hair up, that wearing it down almost felt uncomfortable.

Sloane battered her way through the crowd, the rest of us in tow and somehow found a high top table in a dark corner and commandeered five tall chairs to go with it. The open mic night hadn’t started yet, but the noise was enough to drown out most conversation.

Marisol was scoping out some of the suits, and Chloe was still down in the dumps about her breakup. Our plan was to convince her to get onstage and sing. She had a killer voice and it always made her feel better, but she met Harmony after one of the mic nights here, so that might not be a good idea, considering.

Sometimes people mistook Marisol and I for sisters since we both had blonde hair and were short. But her face was rounder and sweeter than mine, and her personality was a lot sweeter too. Chloe was just a few inches shorter than Sloane and she was always changing her hair color and style. Right now she was rocking a red asymmetrical cut, but I’d seen it just about every color of the rainbow, and she was fond of extensions.

“Okay, I’m going to get drinks.” Sloane was always our drink girl because of her height and her inability to take no for an answer.

She took our orders and memorized them. I went with a gin and tonic, because it was quick for the bartender to make and almost always good. Sloane pushed her way to the bar, leaving a trail of people with newly forming bruises in her wake. I swore sometimes she had the reincarnated soul of an Amazon.

“Are you doing okay?” I leaned over to Chloe. She looked so sad that it broke my heart.

“Yeah, I guess.” She attempted a smile, but it fell from her face. I put my arm around her and gave her a little hug.

“We can cut out early if you want. No pressure.”

“No, no, I’ll be fine. Just call me Eeyore from now on.” I kissed her cheek as the first person took the stage. It was a girl who looked like she watched some videos of Woodstock and tried to emulate them, complete with a flower in her hair. Her hands shook as she settled her guitar in place. I always tried to judge how people were going to sound based on their appearance. It led to me being surprised more often than not.

I decided that this one was going to be tone deaf, and I was mostly right. She hit one note and sounded like a screeching cat, but unlike in other bars, she didn’t get booed offstage. Everyone just kind of gave her halfhearted encouragement and clapped politely when she left the stage.

Sloane came back with our drinks and we sipped and listened to the next few performers. There was a guy with a banjo who wasn’t half bad and then another girl with a guitar who sang an original song that actually had the lyrics, “you’re the sun in my sky, the apple of my eye,” and by the time I was on my second drink, it looked like open mic night was going to crash and burn.

“Excuse me,” one of the bartenders said, tapping my shoulder and holding out another gin and tonic. “The gentleman at the end of the bar wanted to send his regards.” I’d been bought drinks before, but usually not by anyone I’d want to be bought drinks by. All four of use craned our necks to see who it was.

Lucas. Fucking. Blaine.

It took me a second to realize it was him, because he was completely dressed down in a flannel shirt and jeans. When he caught me looking, he raised his glass and I swear he winked.

“Who the hell is that?” Sloane hissed in my ear as the bartender set the drink down. “If you don’t want him, I call dibs.”

The other girls leaned in as the bartender went back to his post.

“Lucas. Blaine.” I said slowly, because I could feel him watching us and waiting for my reaction.

“Shut up,” Sloane said as the other girls finally got it. Of course Sloane had told them all about it. Not that I hadn’t asked her to, but still. They were making a scene. Or maybe it just felt that way.

I bet he was getting a kick out of this. Bastard. If this was some weird way to get in my good graces so I’d hire him, he had another thing coming.

I pushed the drink aside, hoping he would see it.

“You’re not going to let perfectly good alcohol go to waste, are you?” Sloane said as another douche with a guitar took the stage and murdered a John Mayer song. Slowly. Painfully.