Page 19 of You Again
“Oh, Mary, Mother of God,” she breathed out. “You still want to bang him.” My fresh glass of wine was gone in three seconds flat. “You’re mad because you still want him,” she accused. “Holy shit, Henley.” Then the heartless demon started to laugh.
“It’s not funny, El!” I cried.
“What in the hell is wrong with you, Henley?” she asked between her unwarranted bouts of laughter. “By your own accounts, the man is hot as hell and packs a weapon he knows what to do with. Why aren’t you flipping your skirt up and bending over your desk already?”
I grimaced. “Thanks, El,” I said sardonically. “Thanks for that visual.”
Ellie’s grin was enough to make me call Max and demand he come get her. “Come on, Henley,” she chuckled. “What are you scared of?”
“The truth?” Ellie nodded. “I’m scared that I might actually like him. I felt more with him in one night than I did the entire time I was with Arnold.” Ellie’s face softened in understanding. “Yeah, we were drunk and vulnerable and hurt and angry, but…towards the end, I was no longer drunk or angry. I was still hurt and vulnerable, but…God, Ellie, his touch made everything better. He had made all the pain fade into the background and there was a real chance of me handcuffing myself to him, so that he could keep doing the magic that he was doing.”
“That good, huh?”
“Better,” I replied. “And then he passed out, and everything he had been holding at bay came crashing through the floodgates, and I wondered how I could get so lost in this complete stranger when I was supposed to be in love with Arnold. I felt ashamed.”
“Oh, Henley,” she whispered. “That just means Arnold wasn’t the one for you. The cheating dirtbag actually did you a favor, Hen.”
“I know that, El,” I muttered pitifully. “I knew it when I realized I was hurt for all about three days about the entire thing. I knew it when I started to feel more bothered by wondering if Dash thought I was a whore than my fiancé cheating on me.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He was right,” I mumbled.
Ellie leaned forward. “What?”
I let out an opera-worthy sigh. “He was right,” I said louder.
“About what?”
“When he was woman-bashing that night, he said us women were too caught up in worrying that we’ll be labeled as whore to communicate what we really want in bed, and it’s not their fault if they fall short of the goal when they have no idea what we want.”
Ellie’s blonde brows shot up. She had taken after our mother in her coloring of blonde hair and blue eyes, and I had taken after our father with my dark auburn hair and green eyes. “He said that?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “More or less,” I confirmed. “There was a lot of other nonsense he spewed, but that was one of his lopsided arguments.”
“Sounds to me that he doesn’t see you as an easy one-night stand at all,” she replied. “You were just fulfilling his wish that women should be more honest in the bedroom.” She cocked her head. “You were honest in the bedroom, right?”
I set my empty glass on the coffee table next to the couch and grabbed for the entire bottle of wine. I took a drink straight from the source. I needed reinforcements if I was going to go TMI on my sister. Three gulps later, I said, “I let him go where men should only be allowed to go during anniversaries and their birthdays.”
Ellie’s blue eyes nearly popped out of her pretty little head. “Holy Virgin Mary and everyone else, Henley!” she shrieked. “How fucking goodwashe?”
I took another swig from the bottle. “Good enough that I hate myself for wanting to jump his bones again when he’s clearly a jerkface,” I answered truthfully.
Ellie looked baffled, then…flushed. I watched as she grabbed her phone and dialed. I prayed she was calling Max when I heard her say, “Making a baby is going to have to be put on hold tonight, Max. Because, tonight, I want you to bend me over and pretend it’s our anniversary.”
“Eew! Ellie!” I yelled, scarred for life.
“Okay, babe. See you in five minutes,” she said, ignoring my outrage, and failing to remind Max that they lived at least twenty minutes away.
“Seriously, Ellie?” I cried, still horrified by knowing what her plans for tonight were.
My sister grinned at me. “Max is on his way and said he doesn’t want to hear any crap about whatever tickets he’s going to get running the red lights on the way over here.”
The Universe really was out to get me.
