Page 77 of Touch in the Dark

Brooks spins around to look at her best friend, who has sucked in her lips, looking away from Brooke’s piercing gaze. They have a whole silent conversation that only best friends are capable of having that leave me and Meg glancing at one another.

“Then the first order of business this evening is finding a sexy young stud to fuck Elsa into a coma.” Jenna splutters and Brooke smiles triumphantly. “You can’t hide anything from me, baby girl.”

“Fine. I have an ulterior motive but there will be no young studs.”

“Just because you have a soon-to-be-husband who worships you. And Little Miss over here gets thrown around the bedroom by her MMA fighting hero, it doesn’t mean there aren’t some of us here who want to go looking for a little male attention.”

“What about-” Jenna stops herself before she says something she shouldn’t.

I glance at Brooke, then Meg, then Jenna. I start to laugh when everyone is silent for a few seconds.

“We all know about Ciro,” I tell Brooke.

“Know what?” she glares.

“That it is the worst kept secret you guys are fooling around. Tell the truth, when was the last time you had sex?”

She pats her hair, she doesn’t want to talk about it, but she walked herself right into it. “Thursday,” she says eventually.

“With Ciro,” I confirm. “What is he, a friend with benefits?”

“Benefits, yes. Friend… I’m not sure Ciro has friends. I’ve never seen him with his bandmates either, although when we are together, they’re the furthest thing from our minds. But no, we don’t actually talk.”

“Ever?” Meg asks.

“No Meg, we meet, we fuck, we go our separate ways. I usually just get a text and I can either fit him in or I can’t.”

“Don’t you want more?” Jenna asks.

“Not with Ciro. He is not the kind of guy who wants to be in a relationship with anyone.”

“He’s a player?” Meg asks.

“No, funnily enough he isn’t. He’s very discerning about who he spends his time with,” she sits back down and kicks off her heels. “On the very rare occasion when we do speak, he told me if he’s fucking me, he’s not fucking anyone else, and expects the same courtesy.”

“Well, that’s… good,” Meg says with a stilted smile.

“It’s about as romantic as Brooke gets,” Jenna snorts. “To her that is like a dream come true.”

“The perfect man,” Brooke toasts her champagne in the air. I tap mine to hers with a clink. “So, the business at hand. At least with this roll in the hay you’ve let Remi off the hook,” Brooke laughs.

I have to explain that comment to the rest of them, and they laugh about it too.

“First things first,” Brooke says. “What happened to Joel? You were supposed to see him on Friday, weren’t you? I thought the plan was to go to his leaving party.”

I called Joel to let him know I wasn’t going to be able to make his party. After what Nick and I did, it didn’t feel right anymore and as much as I liked him, it was a whole, wrong time, wrong place kind of situation. He was disappointed but he didn’t seem like it was the end of the world. I didn’t doubt he had plenty of women to move on to and would forget all about me. It didn’t upset me. Maybe Joel and I could have had something, in another life, but we weren’t meant to be.

“I couldn’t make it and he was leaving the next day.”

“Nothing to do with the rockstar dirtying your sheets the night before.”

Meg almost chokes on her drink. Jenna laughs.

“Of course that had something to do with it,” I roll my eyes at Brooke. “I wasn’t going to jump out of Nick’s arms and into someone else’s the night after.”

“I suppose,” Brooke nods reluctantly. “Okay, so let’s go through some things then. You slept with Nick and that put you off pursuing anything with Joel. Both of them are complicated. Joel is gone, but Nick is still around, and if Missy over there has anything to do with it, you’ll be having a double wedding.”

It’s my turn to almost choke but before I can splutter anything at her, Brooke goes on.

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