Page 2 of Moments in Ink

“Hi. This is weird.”

“Yeah. I suppose it is.” The woman chewed her very sexy lip. “One second.” She practically ran to the other side of the trees where her door was, and I closed my eyes and prayed that this would end, but I really didn’t think it would. “I uh, had my suit jacket on my porch since I recently took it off.”

“Oh. Thanks. I just thought that I should keep a blanket out here.” I made my way to the gate, trying to act as if this weren’t one of the most embarrassing times of my life. I rolled my shoulders back, even though I had my phone clutched in my hand, my arm barely covering my breasts. Considering that my lace underwear happened to be a thong, when I turned away from her, she would see far more of me than I had planned on anyone seeing for a very long time. “Well, hi. I’m Zia.”

The woman handed over her suit jacket, a single, very sexily shaped brow raised. “Meredith.”

I took the jacket, slid it over my shoulders, and pulled it closed as tightly as I could even though it couldn’t quite fit over my breasts. Meredith had curves, plenty, but her shoulders were broader than mine, probably because it looked like she lifted weights and was muscular. I was a little curvier, but Meredith’s breasts looked firm and tight in her crisp, white shirt. And her thighs? Damn, she must be good at squats. I needed to stop checking her out. “Anyway, hi.”

“Yeah. Hi. You can put the jacket back on the gate when you’re done with it, and I’ll leave you be.” And then the other woman, as sexy as she was, turned on her heel and left me standing alone in her jacket, locked outside my home.

I had said that I could take care of it, and I would. Someone else had my key for emergencies, and this was definitely an emergency. I really wished I wasn’t so embarrassing all the time. I did my best not to run, but I moved quickly back to my porch, hiding behind the bushes as I maneuvered my phone to call for help. Bristol answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Why would you immediately think something was wrong?” I asked, my voice a little high-pitched. The door from Meredith’s house closed, and I was glad that it seemed as if she had gone inside and wasn’t about to hear my embarrassing moments increase.

“You said you were taking the whole night off and didn’t want to talk to anybody and just needed time, remember? I asked you to dinner, and then you got this far-away look in your eyes and said you needed time. But now you’re calling me. What’s wrong?”

Bristol was my ex, the first woman—the firstperson, for that matter—that I had ever loved. Now, she was engaged to her best friend, and the two of them were perfect for each other. I wasn’t jealous that Marcus had Bristol because I was over that love, or at least it had molded into a friendship that I would never take for granted again.

I was jealous that she had found her happily ever after, and I was in the process of forgetting to look for mine because I had fallen in love again after Bristol. But never again. I couldn’t.

“I’m fine. I’m just locked outside of my house on my porch.”

“Crap. Okay, we’ll come bring the key. That stupid lock, right?”

“Yup.”

“What else is wrong?” she asked. I could hear Marcus’s deep voice rumbling on the other side of the phone.

“Well, I met my neighbor.”

“Oh, are they nice?”

“Maybe. I don’t know, considering I was in a bra and panties and dancing on my porch when I realized that I’d locked myself out of the house. Now, I’m cold and wearing her suit jacket.” There was enough silence on the line that it practically screamed at me, but I wanted to hide under my non-existent blanket.

“Was she hot?” Bristol asked. I burst out laughing, and I could hear Marcus grumbling again.

“Can you please just come and help me? And then I will not ask for help again because I can do this. I can do this whole being-on-my-own thing.”

“Of course, you can. You are strong, independent, and you always have been. You are a light in our lives, Zia, and I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered, knowing that my love was far different than it had been even a year ago when it came to Bristol. And the fact that she could say those words to me in front of the love of her life told me that the dynamics of our relationship had changed, and for the better.

“We’re on our way,” Marcus said into the phone.

“Hey there,” I said. “Sorry about this.”

“Never be sorry. We’re here for you.”

“You are too perfect to be real sometimes,” I said, being truthful. “I just figured that, of course, I would meet my new neighbor while I was dancing in my underwear.”

“Well, it could be worse. You could be naked,” Marcus said. I heard the car starting in the background.

“You have not seen these panties,” I said. “I’m pretty much there already.” Marcus barked out a laugh, and I heard the phone switch to speakerphone in their car.

“Stop trying to woo my fiancé,” Bristol joked.

I snorted. “I’m just saying. You already have a triad in the family. We could make a great threesome,” I said, clearly joking. It was a jest we had made more than once, and I liked that they didn’t take me seriously. After all, I wasn’t anywhere near serious in that. Simply because Bristol’s mom loved me and had wanted me to be a part of the family, didn’t mean I was going to marry a Montgomery. I liked being part of the extended family in the way that I was.

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