Page 25 of Sex, Lies, and Margarita Mixes
“You were right about the mirror. I look different without you in it.”
“I smell your perfume on my shirts, and it calms me when you frustrate me because you don’t know how much I love you.”
“I lied. I liked the pink glitter vase.”
And on the last page, the last entry from earlier today, I wrote.
I’m still here.
Same dumb heart that belongs to you. Same stupid hope that you’ll finally realize you’re everything I could ever want or need. Still yours even when you say you don’t want me. I know that you do.
-Chase
After walking back to my room, I crawl under the sheets, and stare at the dark ceiling for another hour.
I’m not hoping. I’m just waiting. Because if she reads it… and doesn’t lock her door, that’s a start. And if she opens my door…. that’s everything.
CHAPTER 4
LOVE NOTES, JEALOUS RAGE, AND ONE VERY WET YOGA MAT
ROXY
* * *
His notebook is sitting on the nightstand like it owns the place. Black and white cover, mangled spine, and chock-full of all the emotional stability I lack.
I don’t want to touch it again because if I do, I’ll cry—more than I already have. Or come. Or both. And I’m emotionally raw enough after his fantasy confession yesterday to know I’m milliseconds away from sobbing into my own cleavage. I stare at the ceiling fan like it owes me money.
My phone buzzes again. I’ve ignored the two consecutive calls before this one. I don’t have to look to know who it is. Only one person calls this early and this often. I glance over anyway knowing she’ll just keep calling like she’s got all the time in the world and the patience of a saint. She has neither and we do have a business to run.
Mari Lynn is lit up on the screen.
Mari Lynn, aka my best friend, my business—though since she’s now married to a hot celebrity chef and they are both regularly on his killing-it-in-the-ratings reality cooking show, I do the day to day stuff and handle the majority of the consults and planning— partner, my reality check, and the woman who once bailed me out of a Las Vegas drunk-tank while wearing a tiara and no shoes. She’s my ride or die.
I answer on the third ring. “Bitch, I’m not dead or is there a bridal emergency? I can be in the car in five.”
“Well, that’s a start.” She claps back, her voice laced with her Texas charm and probably too much caffeine. “Business is fine. Melody is handling everything just fine. You’ve got twenty seconds to tell me what fresh hell is happening before I drive down there. Why are you trying to strangle your sexy ass husband with his own drawstring joggers? Or… should he be strangling you?”
Groaning, I fall backward onto the bed. “He booked this retreat—the one you knew about and didn’t tell me—and he’s making fresh icing and whipped cream shirtless every day, Mari Lynn.”
She’s quiet for a beat before she snickers, “Are they for his pancakes or yours?”
I grin because she knows us too well. “Both.”
“God, I love that man. And his pancakes rival Knox’s. Don’t tell him I said that.” I hear the smile in her voice.
“Pick a side.” I snap.
“I did. Yours. Always. Even when you’re wrong. But Chase loves you. Even when you don’t want him to. Even when you try to sabotage it, which you do. You always have, Roxy. You know I love you and I’m always #TeamRoxy, but if you let that man’s love, sexual prowess, and jawline go to waste, I swear I’ll haunt you. Stop being stupid.”
Well, shit! You don’t have to be so damn honest, bitch.
You’re so right though.
I heavily exhale through my nose, before saying, “He gave me his notebook.”
Silence comes from the other end of the phone before she mutters, “His notebook. Like the notebook? The one from his nightstand that he thinks you don’t know about. That notebook?”
