Page 4 of Awaiting

“Yeah. Do you maybe want to get together for a drink tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“If you’re free. If not, we can do it some other time,” Holly said.

“I won’t get out of here until after six,” Bexley replied.

Then, she squinted her eyes together, wondering why she’d said that at all.

“That’s okay. I’m out of here around the same time tonight.”

“I can meet you at Stan’s place if you–”

“Can we go somewhere else? I love Stan, but he can be a bit much. And if he sees us together–”

“He won’t leave us alone,” Bexley finished for her. “Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“We could go to Royals,” Holly suggested.

Bexley smiled. Royals was a sports bar named after the Kansas City team. She didn’t go there often since she usually got hit on by a bunch of drunk guys, but during the season, she’d go for at least a few games just to soak up the atmosphere of people supporting their team in the same space.

“Sure. Seven?”

“I’ll be there,” Holly said.

???

“She wants to get back together?” Alice asked her.

“Who’s crying?” Bexley checked, smiling into the phone.

“That would be your nephew,” Alice replied. “Although, I’m sure your niece is right behind him. They do everything together, after all.”

It was still a little strange to Bexley that Alice called the twins her niece and nephew. For most of Bexley’s adult life, she had wanted to be the other mother of Alice’s babies. Well, she didn’t care who had them. In some of her fantasies, she had one, and Alice had the other. In others, she had both. In different ones, Alice had them all. Then, there were the other kinds of fantasies altogether where there were no children; it was just the two of them. Bexley needed to not recall those fantasies anymore. Alice was married and a mother to Nora’s kids.

Bexley had long ago left the feelings for Alice behind, but that couldn’t stop the old fantasies from entering her mind, and it had been a long time since she had sex. It had been since Holly, actually, so that must have been why she was thinking about her head between her best friend’s legs right now.

“Fuck,” she muttered to herself.

“What? Is it bothering you? I’m doing the whole move thing where you bounce them a little, but it’s not working. I really thought they’d sleep more than they actually do. I feel like I was lied to.”

Bexley laughed and said, “No, I love those babies. They can cry as much as they want.”

“Hey, you don’t live with them.” Alice chuckled. “So, Holly?”

“We met at Royals. She got there first, so she ordered me a drink, and we spent a few minutes just catching up.” Bexley removed her pants and stuffed them into the laundry basket in her closet. “Then, she tells me she misses me. She had a short relationship with someone she went to vet school with after we broke up, but it ended a couple of months ago. She told me she kept comparing her to me. Finally, she just decided to call me to see if I’d be willing to give her another chance.”

“Didn’t you guys just kind of fizzle out?”

“Not exactly. We never fizzled in one particular area.”

“That good?” Alice asked.

“Oh, yeah; best I’ve ever had,” Bexley replied, recalling those memories instead of her fantasies about Alice.

“Really?”

“Definitely. I assume Nora is that for you?”

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