Page 129 of Unexpected

She had a point; Valerie never took too kindly to me giving anyone else attention, whether it was friends, colleagues, or the waitstaff at a fucking restaurant. She wanted to monopolize my every thought and feeling.

Ronnie dropped off our new drinks and Hazel gave him a soft, polite smile as I brooded over my ex-wife. Her tenderness toward the man eased something in me, though, as I watched her gracefully interact with him like we weren’t just talking about what we were.

When the waiter left to check on his other tables, she said, “Has Blakely spoken to the police? Wouldn’t her statement have some weight in all of this?”

I shook my head and instead of reaching for the glass of whiskey, I pulled Hazel closer to me so her thigh was pressed against my own. She grounded me and I needed her closer.

“No, she won’t talk to them. I’ve told her every day since we found out that she needs to return their calls, but she’s still terrified. She told me today that her only reason for telling me was to scare me into breaking things off with you and to try and protect you. She never planned on actually telling the police.”

“Amanda said pretty much the same thing. For the record, she completely disagrees with how Blakely is handling everything because she practically holds the cards to putting Valerie behind bars but refuses to. She’s also tried reasoning with her on multiple occasions, but nothing seems to be getting through. I wonder if she’s actually been in contact with Valerie recently. Maybe she’s contacted Blakely again this time around, which has renewed her fear.”

“I’ll ask her tomorrow when I do my daily phone call to get her to talk to the cops.”

In the craziness of the rest of my day, I had completely forgotten that she was spending the day with Amanda shopping for tonight.

“You bought this dress today?” I asked with a smile.

“Yeah, it took a few hours to find, but it was worth it.” She ran her hands down the sleeves of the dress that just brushed her wrists and pulled down the hem slightly. I pushed it back up and she swatted my hand away.

“How was it, though? Did y’all have fun?”

Hazel chuckled and pushed away her appetizer plate. “We had so much fun. She’s a fucking riot, and I already love her.”

There was a small twinge of jealousy in my chest hearing her so casually throw around the word that was tormenting me inside, but I shook it off.

“What’d you do?” I asked just in time for our food to arrive. With a large smile, Ronnie left us to eat.

Both of us were overcome with the delicious smells wafting off our bowls of pasta and didn’t wait even a minute before diving in. Around a groan, Hazel said, “We went shopping for a few hours and literally did not stop talking the entire time. I ended up telling her about Michael, and it felt good to get to tell someone about it in the past tense. I didn’t have to explain that it was currently happening but that it was done, over with, and had already happened. Then we ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant downtown and drank the place out of margaritas.”

I cut my eyes over to her as she smiled and slurped a few noodles into her mouth. “You took my advice seriously, then? Let me guess, now you know her whole life story?”

She giggled and shrugged. “First of all, the margaritas were her idea, and second of all, yes.”

“I told you, tequila makes her talk.”

“I think tequila does that to a lot of people and it wasn’t like I didn’t participate. But we didn’t just talk about her, she talked about all of you.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, concerned about what Amanda might have spilled and its impact on how Hazel viewed me and my friends. I knew Hazel wasn’t judgmental, but our group wasn’t always rainbows and sunshine.

“She tell you all our deep dark secrets?”

“No, but she did ask me if your dick is as big as she thinks it is,” Hazel quipped.

Whiskey almost came out of my nose, and I coughed several times before I was able to compose myself. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I asked, “Why the hell does she want to know?”

Hazel was laughing at my reaction and trying not to choke on her pasta when I was able to look back at her. “It’s notthatweird of a question, honestly. Apparently, yours is the only one she hasn’t seen, and Blakely didn’t spill, so she thought I might. She said it must be big or really small if you’ve kept it so tightly under wraps for that many years.”

I gawked at her, amazed at the turn in the conversation and the contradiction between the fancy restaurant and our conversation about my penis size.

“Did you tell her that I’m hung like a fucking horse?”

“Not exactly.” Her tone was nonchalant, which I knew meant I was not going to appreciate what she actually told Amanda.

“What the hell does that mean, Hazel?”

“I told her that it was memorable.”

“That could go both ways. She could assume that I have a small dick now.”

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