Page 79 of Friend Me

I’d thought the kitchen was empty, but it wasn’t. In the corner, where they wouldn’t be visible from anyone in the adjacent living room, Jamila pressed Jenny up against the countertop. As she bent over the shorter woman, her scrap of a Wonder Woman skirt rode up, and I caught a flash of her perfectly toned ass, barely covered by her red panties—and one of Jenny’s hands. Jenny’s red Captain Marvel boot hooked around Jamila’s calf. Their lips fused together.

That vile orange punch tried to make me toss out a snarky comment about a DC-Marvel crossover, but I clamped down my teeth just in time. No need to draw attention to the scene in the kitchen. If we could just sneak past them, maybe Cooper wouldn’t see them. Jamila had seemed so nice. How could she do this to him?

I dragged Cooper toward the laundry room. But his feet stopped moving, and he stared at the women. Crap. Were they just drunk and fooling around? Or was Jamila cheating on him? This was going to go bad. Fast.

“Hey, Mila. Jenny.” His tone was conversational, friendly. My eyes widened, my tipsy brain trying to puzzle out the situation.

Jamila turned her head, her temple still pressed against Jenny’s forehead, her lips puffy. “Hey, Coop.” Jenny waggled her gauntleted fingers at him.

Finally, he let me push him into the laundry room. Under the fluorescents, he looked green. “Are you okay?” I asked.

When he shrugged, he overbalanced and wobbled. I grabbed his biceps. “Cooper?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” But he didn’t look at me. His blue eyes stared at something, maybe nothing, behind me.

“I’m so sorry you saw that. Maybe Jamila isn’t it for you, but you’ll find someone.” Why hadn’t I just left him in the living room while I fetched the water? I tightened my grip on his arms to prove to him how serious I was—or to ensure we both remained upright. “You’re gorgeous, smart, successful. I know the right woman is out there for you.”

His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and he smelled like orange soda and tequila. Still, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever met. Even young Harrison Ford could only wish to look as good in a Han Solo costume.

He looked at me, his blue gaze hot as a gas flame. “Maybe she’s been right here all along.” And he leaned forward and kissed me.

I’d dreamed of this moment. I’d built it up, embroidered it in my imagination so that I anticipated the tingle that would follow the warm brush of his lips over mine. I prepared to swoon from the hot rush of blood from my brain to my soon-to-be-throbbing lady parts. I gripped his arms, preparing for my knees to weaken.

But it was only a kiss. Orange punch–scented. Closed-mouth. A press of lips. Nothing hard pushed against my hip except his plastic lightsaber. No angels sang. No tingle. No clench in my core. No pulse rushing in my ears. Zero sparks.

For the first time in three years, my heart didn’t thump at Cooper’s nearness. My fingertips didn’t go numb, and my breath didn’t quicken.

I truly wanted him to find someone special. Someone who’d set his heart on fire, someone who’d make him long for her the way I’d longed for him for three years. And, even in my alcoholic haze, I knew that person wasn’t me.

And I deserved someone who wanted me, who loved me back, who made me freaking tingle. Who, when we were together, made the world narrow to us two, blurring the world around us.

If that had happened when Cooper kissed me, I wouldn’t have heard the sound.

A squeak on hardwood. A squeak I knew.

I pulled away from Cooper and looked toward the doorway just in time to catch the flash of a princely boot sole.Great Galileo.

My hands still rested on Cooper’s arms, and I shook him. Gently. Orange punch barf would be hard to get out of my white gown.

“Hey. Are you okay?” I needed to talk to Tyler, explain what he’d seen. That hadn’t been a no-big-deal squeak. If a boot squeak could be angry, that one had been.

“No,” he groaned and slumped back against the washing machine, his normally tan skin pallid.

“Water,” I said. “Don’t move.”

In the kitchen, I waved at the still-lip-locked women. “Don’t mind me.” I grabbed a glass, filled it from the tap, and scurried back into the laundry room.

I pushed the glass into his hands. “Drink.”

While he chugged the water, I called a car for him. His color was better when he handed the glass back to me, but his glassy eyes and clumsy movements told me he was either drunk or heartbroken—probably both. Walking him past Jamila would be cruel, so I took him outside through the garage.

The cool air slapped my cheeks, and so did my good friend, remorse. Why had I stood so close and let Cooper kiss me? Why had I done it where anyone could see? And why had fate, that cruel bitch, made Tyler walk by just then? I glanced back at the house. I’d have to find him, talk to him. And say what?

I looked up at the sky. More to myself than to Cooper, I said, “Too bad it’s too foggy to see the stars tonight.” A hazy glow lit the sky where the moon should’ve been. No stars, not even a planet, were visible. I could’ve used the companionship of the constellations.

“Whazzat?” He dragged his gaze from the street to my face.

“No stars tonight. It’s foggy.”

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