Page 89 of The Fate of Us

She pulls on my shoulders and peers over me. “Not everything. Tell me about that hot singer who you spent the week with.”

I roll my eyes at her and push her away. “You make it sound like something else happened besides songwriting when you say it like that.”

She raises her brows up and down at me. “Is that what they are calling it these days? Songwriting? I need to get my innuendos straight.”

I stand up and grab my empty glass, half stumbling to the kitchen. “You do have a boyfriend. Do you not remember?”

She follows me into the kitchen. “Who, Darnell?”

“Already forgotten after picturing a tall, sexy, blond-haired, brown-eyed cowboy?” I tease.

“Sounds dreamy,” she whispers resting her elbows on the counter and placing her chin in her palms.

I throw a lemon at her. “He’s twenty years old.”

“Age is just a number.”

“And what about Darnell?”

She flutters her hand at me as she walks to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of chardonnay. “Darnell who?”

I stare at her in shock. “What do you mean Darnell who?”

She shrugs and pours a heavy amount of wine into her oversized glass. “I didn’t want to tell you when you were in Nashville. But I broke up with him.”

“What?” I shriek. “But you two were like fire and gasoline.”

She gulps down a huge amount of wine and smirks. “It was hot and heavy. Chemistry was never our problem.”

“Then what was?”

She bites her lip and looks at me, honesty in her eyes. “I want to be someone’s priority. Not their backup plan.”

I sip my martini, this one with triple sec in it, figured I should slow down. “I don’t think you were his backup plan.”

“It was the same shit as last time. He wants me to go on tour with him. I told him I have a business here and I can’t leave. He said I wasn’t willing to make sacrifices and I told him he wasn’t either.” She stops and finishes the glass of wine that was half full. “Then he said his music was always first and if I couldn’t wrap my head around that then we could never be together.”

“He did not say that!”

“Fucking asshole sure did. I slapped him, kicked him in the balls, and stormed out of his house.”

“You did not!” I say, mouth agape.

“You bet your perfect peach ass I did.”

I wrap my arms around her in a tight embrace. “You are a badass, my friend.”

Her arms go around me. “Why are men such assholes?”

“Because they think with their dicks.”

“Mmm. You’re right.”

I pull away from her and reach for the shot glasses she has displayed on a floating shelf next to her kitchen. “We should get drunk.”

“You already are.”

“We should get drunker. Fuck, men.”

---