Page 19 of Going for Two

I open the bottle and turn to find a glass for each of us. “Why do you care so much about some deep-seated resentment I may or may not have been harboring for the past few decades anyway?” I ask from the cabinets.

“Because I’ve got nothing but time,” she returns, mimicking my earlier reply and making me smile again.

Then she scoffs when I place the empty glasses on the counter. “Damn, Gus-Gus. I agreed to a glass, not a fishbowl.”

To be fair, the glassesarepretty big. But that isn’t what catches my attention.

“Gus-Gus?”

Her face reddens slightly. “It’s what I used to call you behind your back in school. You know, like the mouse fromCinderella?”

I pour the wine, nearly emptying out the bottle between the two glasses. Oh well, I have plenty more, including the bottle of champagne. “But where in the hell did you get—oh. Augustine.”

“BlakeAugustineBourgeois.” The way she carefully enunciates each syllable of my full name makes me shiver.

“Fine, LorenAgnesReed,” I fire back, eager to move past the urge to ask her to say my name again so I can watch her mouth more carefully. “And all this time I thoughtIwas the bully.” I slide her glass across the counter, and she takes a seat before bringing it to her lips. I try not to watch and distract myself by taking a big gulp from my own glass.

She leans over to grab one of the takeout boxes, and my eyes dart down to the skin she inadvertently exposes when the neckline of her fitted bridesmaid’s dress dips a couple of inches. I already had to stop myself from staring a few times throughout the ceremony, especially once I realized I’d been leaning around the priest to get a better look at her.

“Look, I had to save face somehow, Gus-Gus. I needed to make the best of every opportunity I got to take you down a few pegs,” she explains before she sits back and stuffs a forkful of noodles into her mouth.

I smirk as I watch her chew. “Right. Because I led such a charmed life and all.”

“Didn’t you?” She stares at me expectantly.

I shrug. “I guess. Though it’s never enough for a perfectionist.”

“Which is why you’ve always loathed me and my GPA?”

I let out an exhale and look down at my glass. “I never hated you, Loren. Only myself. But I’m sorry for making you feel like I did.” She’s quiet for a second, so I take another long swallow.

“After all this time, I really appreciate hearing that from you,” she says softly. But then she adds, “And I am genuinely sorry for being smarter than you,” as the corners of her mouth turn up in a cocky sneer.

I laugh and grab a fortune cookie to toss at her, making her giggle again. “At least you can say that you’re still the same old intolerable smartass.”

“I am what I am.” She shrugs unapologetically and uses both hands to pick up her huge glass. “To JD and Tenley,” she begins, and I lift mine curiously. “May their marriage continue to be the stuff of cheesy romance novels with a happily ever after and all that.”

I nod once and take a drink, still wondering what inspired her sudden toast.

“And to Augustine and Agnes, may we move forward as tolerable frenemies. As the closest friends of the happy couple, this is only the first of many awkward family events we’ll be forced to attend together. Hopefully we’re able to entertain one another for the next few years’ worth of baptisms and birthday parties, since I’m pretty sure they’re literally working on making a shit-ton of babies, like, as we speak.”

I snicker and clink my glass against hers this time. “To Augustine and Agnes.”

The conversation shifts as we eat, and we begin reminiscing on some of the times we’d bested one another in high school. I’m pouring out the last of the champagne, which I’d opened after we finished off the second bottle of wine, when she brings up our first kiss.

“I still can’t believe you punched Landry in the face that night,” she says, slurring a little. “There I was, thinking you were setting me up as the butt of a joke, then I found out later that you were only trying to defend my honor.”

I smirk, noticing how her eyes look glossy and wondering if mine are just as bad. I probably should have cut us off by now.

“It was the least I could do after you volunteered to be my test dummy.”

The truth is that as far as first kisses go, mine had been pretty amazing. It’s likely that Loren hadn’t enjoyed it as much as I had, but it only took one try for me to realize that making women feel good was an instant dopamine hit, and so began my serial dating habits.

And, speaking of women staying over …

“Oh, shit,” I mumble to myself.

“What?”

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