Page 66 of Love's a Glitch
They were right, of course. Anyone I met online didn’t stand a chance, and I wasn’t ready to put my battered heart out there again. Which would only be unfair, once again, to any guys I attempted to connect with.
I closed the lid to my laptop and slid it aside. “Thank you, besties. Have I told you how much I love you lately?”
Affection shone across both of my friends’ faces, and Penny asked, “Can we hug you now?”
I nodded and stood, and we huddled together and exchanged “I love you”s. Sure, one day the longing for a romantic relationship would return, but this right here was the type of unconditional love and understanding I needed right now, and why these two women had been my ride or die for a decade.
Once we returned to our seats, I heard a text chime through the din of the bar, and for all my talk, I sure whipped out my phone fast. No message glowed on the screen, and if onehadcome in, the chances of it being from Luke were slim to none, emphasis on thenot-gonna-happen-so-give-it-up, Ellie.
“It’s me,” Cat said, frowning at the screen.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, and Cat flattened her phone to her chest. “I’m not sure. I’ll be right back.” She strode toward the one semi-quiet corner of the bar, tapped her screen, and lifted her phone to her ear.
Then Penny’s phone rang. She crinkled her forehead and answered, and her features went blank as she listened to whoever was on the other line. She swiveled the phone so that the top was still against the ear, but the speaker was up in the air. “So sorry to do this, Ellie, but I’ve got to take this. Will you be okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just going to order a drink. One with a kick. Want anything?”
Penny started to shake her head, muttered “one second” into the phone, and then said, “Six shots of whiskey, two for the each of us. Seems like that type of night.”
I shrugged, thinking that was just as well. After my pity party three weekends ago, I’d consumed predominately beverages with lots of caffeine, while occasionally forcing myself to drink water. With my dating profile plans on hold, it seemed like as good a time as any to kick back and get a little tipsy.
* * *
“You guys,I’m too buzzed to look at a website and judge it properly,” I said. Two shots of whiskey turned into three and a Jack and Coke.
“It’s not like you have to do the work on it tonight.” Cat sat next to me and opened up my laptop like I couldn’t do it myself. Then she pivoted the keyboard to me. With a sigh to show I didn’t understand why this had to happen now, I typed in my password.
“Why are you being so damn pushy tonight?”
“I’m pushy every night,” Cat said, and Penny pointed a finger at her and added, “Spittin’ facts, right there.”
Somehow during the last half hour, they’d gone from commiserating with me to… I wasn’t even sure. They kept ordering drinks while acting cagey as hell. Now Cat was telling me that the call she’d taken was from a friend who needed a web designer, and that it was an emergency.
Thirty minutes after the original call.
“Emergency or not, I can’t fix a whole website in a night, and again, certainly not while I’m drunk.”
“You’re not St. Paddy’s Day Jell-O shots drunk.” When had Penny moved her chair to my right side?
“Considering the mass destruction I caused to my social life that night, I’m never planning to be that drunk again.” Although without that night, Luke and I would’ve never ever come into one another’s lives. I waited for the thought to invoke… I wasn’t precisely sure what, but I definitely didn’t expect the amount of regret and sorrow that welled up. How could the idea of never meeting him hurt as badly as watching him walk away without so much as a glance back?
His family had apologized on his behalf, and while I’d appreciated it, I’d almost begged them to just let me flee with what dignity I had left.
Cat elbowed me in the boob as she typed the website into the search bar, and I rubbed at the spot.
“Ow.”
“You’ll live,” she said, so I had no choice but to elbow her back.
“Ouch.”
I raised an eyebrow like “see?” because I was super mature.
“Anyway, here’s the website. Take a look, and you’ll see why my friend’s freaking out.”
“Holy shit.” At first I thought it was because my vision was hazy, but blinking didn’t help the barrage of obnoxious colors and the flashy animation. “I never thought I’d say this, but that’s too many unicorns.”
“No comment on the excess of hot pink?” Penny teased, and I huffed a laugh.
