Page 5 of Nailed (Dad Bod Contracting 3)
I choke on margarita yet again. “No! I said it was about talking me out of fu—out of thinking about him.”
Audra just snorts. “Bullshit.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not opposite day, Audra.”
Nova raises a finger. “I’m with Audra on this one. You wouldn’t have brought all four of us out to talk about Ryder unless you secretly, deep down, wanted us to talk you into seeing him again.”
“You went on, what, four dates? You go out with your girlfriends to get over a serious boyfriend, not a guy you went on four dates with.” She shoots me a questioning glance. “Did you do anything with him?”
I shrug, shaking my head. “Not really.”
Audra’s eyes fix on mine. “Not really? What does that mean?”
I blush. “It means we made out a little, and that’s it.”
Nova laughs. “You messed around, you mean.”
Audra moves her fist toward her mouth and pokes her tongue against the inside of her opposite cheek. “Yeah…messed around.”
“We kissed, mouth to mouth, and that’s it,” I say, feeling my cheeks burn.
Audra’s eyebrow arches. “After four dates all you did was kiss?”
I shrug. “I move pretty slowly, and I told him that up front. I’ve got a son, so I have to be careful about who I let into my life.”
Audra snickers. “Maybe that’s why he ghosted? You didn’t put out soon enough.”
Imogen slaps her on the arm again. “She told him up front that she wanted to take things slowly.”
“Yeah, but only kissing after four dates? That’s glacially slow.” Audra gives me a grin that says she’s just giving me crap.
“It’s totally normal,” I say. “Fucking on the first date is what’s unusual.”
Audra nods as if in agreement. “That’s why I didn’t date. I just fucked.”
“I fuck, hard,” Imogen quotes, making her voice deep and gruff, and we all cackle. “You’re out of your league with this one, Laurel.”
I laugh. “Oh, I know.”
Imogen pours the last of the margarita into our glasses. “You should at least find Ryder and talk to him, see why he suddenly stopped answering your messages. There’s got to be some kind of logical explanation.”
“What if his explanation is that he just doesn’t like me?” I ask.
“We get together again, and the margarita pours are a little heavy in your favor,” Nova answers. “And we ask for double the tequila.”
I just laugh. “If you get me hammered on tequila, you’d better be ready to babysit me, because tequila-drunk Laurel is…a handful.”
“I think that’s just the nature of tequila,” Nova says. “It has that effect on everyone.”
I sigh. “I don’t want to want his explanation. I don’t want there to be an explanation.”
“Why not?” Audra asks.
“Because I like him too much, and I just know he’s only going to ghost me again, and I’ll be even more invested by that point.”
Audra smirks. “When you called me, what you said was that you had fallen for him.”
I glare. “That was me being emotional—and tipsy. It was an exaggeration. You can’t fall for someone after four dates.”
Audra and Imogen just laugh, exchanging significant looks.
“What?” I demand.
They just laugh all the harder.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Audra says. “It’s not true, but it may let you sleep at night.”
I sigh, because the evidence does seem to be in their favor.
And it was a little bit more than a kiss that happened between us that night.
He knew it, I knew it, and chances are, that’s why he vanished on me.
UGH.
I just know this isn’t going to turn out well. But I’m a sucker for punishment, it seems, because I’m all too aware that I’m going to go talk to him.
“You’d better make it triple the tequila,” I say with a long sigh. “I have a feeling I’m gonna need it.”
Chapter 2
I check my makeup in the rearview mirror of my car, purse my lips, make sure I don’t have any lipstick on my teeth, and then angle the mirror downward. I plump my breasts, tugging the top down a little and pushing the girls up, and then huff in irritation at myself for putting so much effort into this. I rearranged my schedule today, skipping lunch and condensing things so I’d be able to leave before seven in the evening—and made sure Nate’s babysitter could stay later than her usual six p.m.
And I’m dressed to kill: tight knee-length black skirt that shows off all the work I do in the gym to keep my butt tight and some fairly plain but comfortable black heels that add to the effect the skirt has on my butt. I paired the skirt with a peach-colored top that leaves my arms bare and shows off just enough of my expensive cleavage—meaning these great tits are displayed to maximum advantage, with the aid of the low-cut top and a push-up bra. My hair is brushed to a glossy sheen and hanging in loose spirals around my shoulders. My makeup emphasizes the pale green of my eyes and my naturally tan skin—which is a gift of genetics from my Sicilian mother…along with a heck of a temper and a voracious appetite for carb-loaded foods.
