Page 89 of About Last Night

Her expression goes blank. “Oh. If it’s all the same, I’d rather just leave the past in the past.”

“Oh, but I?—”

“You were right. It was too much too soon, and that’s on me. You were right about a lot of it, I see that now. You weren’t ready for anything serious, and I mean, who can blame you after that shitshow with Shae? And I didn’t think I could handle just having fun. With you. We’re just at two different points in our life. We would have had to work really hard to make us work and who wants to do that?” She shakes her head. “I don’t. Over the last couple of months, I realized I really liked my life, my social life, the way it was. So, really. It’s all good.” She holds out her hand. “Friends?”

“Um, yeah.” I reach out to shake Toni’s hand in a daze, and not in the trippy LSD peace love and happiness kind of daze. Shake her hand, for God’s sake! When what I wanted to do five minutes ago was to push her up against the wall and shove my tongue down her throat.

Her hand is strong and thin, with a ridge of calluses where the palm meets her fingers, but her touch is gentle, as if she’s afraid of the contact. As well she should be. Her eyes darken with an expression I know very well, and a lightning bolt of desire strikes deep inside me. She holds my gaze for a second, two, then drops it to my lips.

“Who knows,” she says, barely above a whisper. Her gaze travels back to meet mine. “Maybe we will see each other across the room in a crowded bar again soon.” She drops my hand, steps back, and grins. “Could be fun.”

“Hey, where’s my coffee?” Willa appears in the door. “Oh, hey, Auds, didn’t realize you made it. Come on. We’re waiting on you two.”

Toni hands my sister the forgotten mug. “Here you go, Miranda Priestly.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Willa says. I can still hear her voice as they walk down the hall. “Though I always saw myself more as the Emily Blunt character.”

Toni laughs. “No way in hell.”

What in the world just happened here?

It takes every ounce of energy and effort I have to put one foot in front of the other and follow them. I have fifteen seconds to pull myself together before I walk into the conference room.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it in a lifetime.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

AUDREY

I walk into the Chicken Head Saloon and let my eyes adjust to the dark. With a name like the Chicken Head I have no idea what kind of decorative kitsch is going to greet me, though I figure there will be at least one “Eggs for Sale” sign somewhere on the walls. Instead, the walls are covered with antique climbing gear and black-and-white photos of people in Victorian clothes posing on glaciers and next to makeshift flags stuck into rocky outcroppings on top of a mountain.

I’m sure there’s a connection between the chicken head on the sign and all of this, but I have no idea what it is and, frankly, I don’t care. I scan the bar, which looks like a British pub and smells like stale beer and patchouli, looking for Toni. It’s almost deserted, not surprising for a Monday night at the end of February. There are a couple of men sitting with a barstool open between them, not talking but obviously together, an abandoned beer at the end of the bar in the back, and two couples playing darts on the other side of the bar. No one else.

I exhale. It was a shot in the dark anyway. But after the comment Toni made in the break room, it was a shot I had to take, especially when I learned Toni is leaving the country tomorrow for at least two weeks.

Might as well have a drink while I’m here. I pick a stool at the short end of the U-shaped bar and order a gin and tonic.

“Do you have cucumber? For the drink?” I ask.

He’s old and grizzled with a beard that looks like it hasn’t been trimmed since this building was built in the nineteenth century. He looks at me through narrowed blue eyes and doesn’t answer.

“Lime is fine. Thanks.”

I look around while I wait for my drink. So, this is Toni’s regular bar. Huh. I suppose she feels at home here surrounded by all the climbing stuff and it does have a certain charm if you don’t mind the sticky bar, uneven barstools, and overly chatty bartender.

He lays a napkin down on the bar and puts my drink on it.

I thank him and take a sip. I swallow and cough, my eyes watering. “Oh wow,” I croak. “That’s strong.”

“She told me to use the good stuff and double it. That’ll be eighteen dollars.”

I cough again, and rifle through my purse for cash. “That’s a little rich considering the atmosphere.” I pull a twenty out of my wallet and put it on the counter. “Wait, who told you to use the good stuff?”

The bartender turns and points to the end of the bar that had the abandoned beer bottle five minutes ago. Toni is there, and she raises her beer bottle to me. A flurry of butterflies take flight in my stomach. She slides off her stool and strolls over.

“Hi.” She leans against the bar, all relaxed charm.

My hello comes out breathy and my blush feels like the heat of a thousand suns on my face and neck.

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