Page 56 of Stone Rules

Piper: Just tell me when and where. I’ll always be here for you.

I smile. Who needs a man when I have my best friend?

~ ~ ~

Walking into the nightclub, everything feels familiar. Piper is on my arm and we’re both dressed to kill. Kill what, I’m not sure, but we are.

Within minutes, we’re given drinks compliments of some guys at the end of the bar. I lift my glass to them and toss it back quickly, knowing it won’t be long before they come over and hit on us. This isn’t anything new. I’ve done this dance before. In fact, it was pretty commonplace for the five years I was traveling abroad. When we were running low on cash, usually at the end of the month, Piper and I would head to a club. Men would buy us drinks. I’d feel them out to determine which one was more likely to let us crash for a few days. Piper hated those nights. She always stayed sober, hating the fact I was selling myself for a warm bed for the two of us. I never looked at it that way. It was only sex. A means to an end. Giving it away meant nothing to me. It would have been much harder to part with what material things I had of value. Like the platinum bracelet my only living grandmother gave me when I was seven, right before she passed away. Or the pearl necklace Piper’s parents gave me for high school graduation.Thosethings meant something to me.

More drinks arrive, this time from a group of men sitting at a nearby table. Piper is still drinking her bottle of water. She never accepts drinks from anyone. And she’s determined to be the ‘designated driver,’ even though we came here in a cab. I know it’s her way of taking care of me. Making sure I don’t do anything stupid. I’m not shy about taking up the slack, so I pull her new drink over to me and dump it into mine. I raise the empty glass to the men at the table. One of them whistles at me.

Piper eyes me skeptically. “We’re here for us, right? Two girls having fun on a night out. We’re not over there anymore. Right, Charlie?”

I take a slow swallow of my large drink. “Right, Pipes. No worries.”

When one of the groups of guys comes over, we thank them for the drinks and politely decline their invitation to dance.

“So, is Mason pissed that I’m monopolizing so much of your time lately?” I ask her.

“What? No. Of course not. You are not monopolizing my time. He understands that best friends need to hang. He has nights he spends with the guys. Plus he—”

“Knows how fucked up I am so he feels sorry for me?” I say.

“That’s not what I was going to say, Charlie. What I was going to say was that he looks forward to the nights he gets to spend with just him and Hailey. Don’t get me wrong, we love hanging out as a family. But before I came along, he developed a really special bond with her. He just doesn’t want to lose that. So it’s good for them to have this time.” She pulls me in for a hug. “And it’s good forusto have this time. I’ve really missed you, Charlie.”

“Well, don’t get too attached,” I say.

She pushes me away, holding me at arm’s length as she scowls at me. “Charlie Anthony Tate, you are not leaving New York. I absolutely forbid it.”

“Youforbidit?” I ask, with a challenging rise of my brow.

While Piper goes into a tirade on how she just got me back and I can’t possibly leave again, I can only think of one thing. CAT. What the hell does it mean and why did he seem so upset when I asked him about it? Is that why he can’t be with me? Maybe he’s still pining away over some other woman who wronged him.

I start thinking of the night in the pool when I saw the tattoo. It was the second time we were together. It was the first time I thought of him as more than just another screw. The first time my heart hurt over a man.

Shit. I have to get him out of my head.

More drinks are delivered by a waitress. This time, the men follow directly behind her, introducing themselves as soon as she puts the glasses on our table.

“I’m Zach and this is Kevin,” the tall one says. “The drinks are from me. Kevin’s married and he wants to make it perfectly clear that he had no part in this whatsoever other than being my wingman.”

We laugh. You gotta admire the guy’s sincerity. “Nice to meet you, Zach and Kevin. I’m Charlie.” I motion to Piper. “And this is Piper. She wants me to make it perfectly clear that she’s engaged and is only here asmywingman.”

“Well, now that we have all that out of the way, would you ladies like to dance?” Zach asks, holding his hand out to me.

I’m about to blow him off like the rest of the guys who’ve bought us drinks, but then I would probably just sit here and think of the P.I. all night long. And this night is all aboutnotthinking about him.

Plus, Zach is funny.

I shrug and then raise my eyebrows at Piper, letting her decide for us. “Okay. It sounds fun,” she says.

I quickly finish off drink number four and take Zach’s hand as we get up to walk to the dance floor.

“So, how long have you been married, Kevin?” Piper asks.

“Four years,” he says. “Married my high school sweetheart right after graduation.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Piper says.

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