Page 16 of A Sip of Sherry

I’d been lying to my best friend in the whole damn world since Halloween.It was about damn time I tell her.My teeth slid over my bottom lip, and guilt rushed up my spine and into my cheeks like my pants were on fire.

“When?”she exclaimed.

“Shh!”I grabbed her arm and spun her away from the doorway and farther into the room, hoping the storage bins would muffle our voices.

Lainey’s eyes widened in the way they did when she was silently trying to get me to speak.

“I slept with him on Halloween.”

“Halloween?”Lainey’s voice bounced off the walls, and I slammed my free hand to her mouth.The brat licked my hand, and I dropped it, swiping the wetness onto my pant leg.

“Ew!”

“Don’t youewme.You’ve been lying to me since Halloween?”The lilt on Halloween was like a slap to the face.I told Lainey everything.Always had.It wasn’t just that I wanted to keep Ben a secret, but ever since Lainey had started dating Nero, she wasn’t around like she once was.I was so happy for her, but I was mourning the friendship we had.

“I wasn’t lying.I was selectively withholding.”

“Clearly you weren’t withholding from Mr.Ben over there.”

Even when she was annoyed at me, she couldn’t help but be her usual witty self.“Okay, I deserved that, but since I’m being honest.”

Her eyebrow lifted, nearly touching the blonde strands of her hairline.

“I slept with him on New Year’s, too.”

“Is that where you disappeared to?”She swatted at my arm.“I told Nero it wasn’t like you to vanish before the last guest left.”

“It went longer than I expected.”

“Did it now?”

“Babe, do you need me?”Nero’s voice boomed through the warehouse.Lainey stormed away from me and poked her head out of the doorway.

“Go away,” she said.

“Are you serious?”Nero called back.“I just climbed a ladder to hang that stupid ‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow’ sign you insisted on, and I almost fell into a crate of wine.

“You didn’t break anything, did you?”I hurried to the doorway to see his face and make sure he wasn’t trying to charm his way free.

“Sher, no, I didn’t.”He held his arms up, then ran a hand down his shirt.“Thanks for caring.”

“I wasn’t asking about you.I was asking about the wine.”

Nero let out a huff, and Lainey giggled beside me.

“Ben is getting chairs.Go help him,” I said, hitching a thumb over my shoulder.

“And what are you two doing?”

“None of your business,” Lainey said, blowing him a kiss before grabbing my arm and yanking me into the far corner of the room.“Where were we?Oh yes, you slept with Ben not once, but twice.And now I’m catching you two eye-to-eye in the warehouse like you want to strip each other’s close off but won’t.Do I have that about right?”

“That’s about right.”

“So why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Sherry Elizabeth Grasso, don’t play dumb with me.You like him.Like you…likehim.”

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