Page 27 of Happily Never After

Because he was free.

Exactly how I’d felt.

“You’re welcome,” I said, and I felt like I’d done something good. Something important.

Which feltamazingbecause I’d been a bit lost since the wedding.

I glanced over at Max, who was staring at me like he was trying to figure me out, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.

So I flipped him off.

“So how did it go?” I asked TJ, smiling as I heard Max’s deep chuckle. “Did the drama die after we left?”

“Fuck, no,” he said, then proceeded to launch into the bonkers story of how Callie denied everything until Ronnie stood up and confessed. Ronnie confessed, apologized to TJ, then professed his undying love to Callie in front of literally God and everyone.

“So just when I thought the entire ordeal couldn’t get any more Jerry Springer, Callie called Ronnie pathetic and told him shedidn’t love him and never had. She said—and I quote—‘I only love your penis.’ ”

“No,” Max said, shaking his head. “Nope. Dude, I am so sorry.”

TJ shrugged. “I’m just glad I finally saw her for who she was before it was too late.”

I raised my wineglass. “Hear, hear.”

We hung out with TJ for another hour, drinking (TJ and I—not Max) and watching baseball on the TVs behind the bar. TJ was incredibly sweet, the kind of guy you wanted to protect at all costs, and I had mad respect for Max’s insistence that I help him out.

He was a very nice guy for being determined to save his old friend.

The more wine I drank, the more interested I became in their childhood stories.

Max was suddenly the most fascinating man on the planet, but not because of my buzz. It was because I was learning about my partner in crime, this stranger I was joining forces with to do something important.

I told him that on the way home. I turned a little in my seat and said, “Do you realize how interesting you’ve become now that we’re partners?”

His lips turned up into a smile, but his eyes stayed on the road. “I didnotrealize that.”

“I mean, you’re objectively a handsome guy and fairly charming, but who’s not, right?”

“Right...?” he replied, looking amused as his wrist casually hung over the steering wheel.

“I mean,” I explained, “that isn’t necessarilyinteresting.At least not to me.”

I knew I was tipsy rambling, but I didn’t particularly care. I kept going.

“But now that we’re officially an objecting team and I’ve seenyou at work, I want to know where you live, what your office looks like, if you go to a barber or a salon, if you have any pets, what your favorite food is, and what song is stuck in your head lately—you’ve become a wholethingI’m curious about.”

“Well,” he said, glancing over at me for a second before his eyes returned to the road, “I live a couple blocks away from you, my office is modern minimalist, barber, a cat, spaghetti, and ‘Exile.’ ”

“God—cat, spaghetti, and ‘Exile’—we’re the same person,” I replied, surprised.

“Are we?” he asked, giving me a small smile as he hit his blinker and slowed at an intersection.

“Are we what?” I replied, forgetting what I’d last said because he was looking at me anddamn, the man was attractive. There was something about the way his lips turned up that didthingsto my stomach.

I bet he’s good in bed.

Not that I was thinking about sleeping with him—God, no—but objectively speaking, he seemed very...capable.He struck me as the kind of guy who was remembered as “the best I ever had” by everyone he’d been with.

He had that I-know-carnal-secrets look about him.

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