Page 122 of Just This Once

“Well…” Raina nudged my arm as she leaned against me and panted, trying to catch her breath. “It was Hope’s idea.”

Xander’s gaze went to me, and she smiled through her tears. “Thank you.”

I could only shrug, feeling strangely bashful. But it wasn’t often that people thanked me. They were usually too busy cussing me out for some mischievous thing I’d done. “We’ve all been where you are,” I said lamely.

“Well,mostof us have, anyway,” Faith muttered, nudging Oaklynn’s arm and calling her out.

“Hey, Damien and I had a huge, blow-out fight once that split us up for a good minute,” she argued. “And it was honest-to-goodness the worst three days of my life.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, returning my attention to Xander. “Damien, along with everyone else living here who has a penis, has henceforth been exiled from the premises for the remainder of the evening. Ergo, girls’ night has officially begun.”

“Girls’ night?” Xander asked with lifted brows.

I nodded. “Yeah, makeovers, junk food, andallthe hot gossip. You in?”

“I mean…” She glanced at the four of us and bobbed her head. “Definitely.”

“Great!” I clapped my hands and then rubbed them together. “Go take a shower. You’re going to be the first victim.”

An hour later,we had Xander sitting at a chair that we’d pulled away from the kitchen table and stationed in the center of the room, where Raina was standing in front of her, applying makeup; Faith was behind her, curling her hair; and Oaklynn sat to one side in another chair, painting her fingernails.

As for me, I’d plopped myself on the floor to give her a pedicure.

“This is so much fun,” Raina repeated for, like, the hundredth time tonight. “And how in God’s name is your skin so clear? Has this face evenmeta zit?”

While Xander scoffed and answered, “Of course,” Faith hummed low in her throat.

“Girl, forget her face. Are you getting a load of this hair? I mean, look how easy this shit is to curl.” She pulled the curling iron free of a lock, only for it to bounce into the perfect spiral. “Fucking unfair.”

“And how in the world do you get your nails to grow so damn long?” Oaklynn groused as she blew on the hand she’d just finished.

“Um, I drink milk,” Xander answered timidly.

“I’m starting to think she’s not real,” I claimed from the floor as I clipped away at her pinky toenail. “I mean, I’m working down here on her feet, and they don’t even stink.”

“Because I just took a shower,” she laughed, lifting the foot I wasn’t working on to taunt me in the face with it.

I sputtered and shoved it out of my way, making her laugh and pull it back before sighing in delight. “You guys really don’t have to compliment me just to make me feel better, you know.”

“Hey, this is, like, a once-in-a-lifetime treat,” I warned her. “So just sit back and enjoy it while it lasts, will ya?”

“Yeah,” Raina echoed and lifted a gummy worm to Xander’s lips. “Another?”

“Mmm. Yes. Thank you.”

As Raina fed her, Faith started on a new curl and picked up a Twizzlers stick. “So what’s the story with this guy of yours, anyway?” she asked as she peeled the stick in half before stuffing one portion into her mouth. “Mmph. You sure are mourning him hard. He have a twelve-inch dick or what?”

Xander glanced up in surprise. “Who? Liam?”

Faith shrugged. “I don’t know. Is that your ex’s name?”

“Yeah,” Xander said softly. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know. He was the first and only boyfriend I ever had. I thought we were going to be together for the rest of our lives.”

“I thought that about my high school boyfriend too,” Raina mumbled lamely before she shrugged and brightened. “But thank God I was wrong about him. I never would’ve met Foster otherwise.”

“It’s just—we were so close. We did everything together, and I mean, absolutely everything. We even talked about getting married someday like it was already a given. So this came completely out of nowhere.”

When she choked out a hoarse sob, I rushed to ask, “Was he any good in bed?”

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