"Oh, that’s perfect! I need to reschedule."
"Really? Jeez, fate is working on my side." She muttered under her breath, "Let’s hope it stays that way. Will six be okay?"
"Yeah, that’s fine," I agreed. "I’ll see you then."
In the background, I heard a barista call out her name and after she muttered her thanks at him, she told me, "I can’t believe you held out on me about Aidan O’Donnelly."
"There was nothing to hold out on," I admitted. "We reconnected a short while ago."
"For a one-night-stand?" Jen squeaked. "But you never have those."
"No. I don’t. It was... well, it felt right at the time."
"Not now? You regretting it?"
"No. Just wondering why things feel so right with him."
The bustle of the coffee shop disappeared and was replaced with the sounds of a New York street.
Over a horn and a gaggle of foreign voices that made me think she’d just dived into a crowd of tourists, she hollered above the noise, "I didn’t hear that, honey. Did you say he fucked you wrong?"
Chuckling at how she’d mangled up my words, I retorted, "No, he fucked me very right."
"Okay, good, because that would have been very disappointing. I’ve been sniffing around him for years but he never took me up on it. That would have been depressing if all that yummy promise was for nothing."
That stupid wave of irrational jealousy took over me again, much as it had when we’d been talking about his cheerleader exes, and I gritted my teeth to contain it.
I had no right to be jealous.
It was insane.
Maybe if I repeated that a thousand times, I’d start to believe it.
"So, come on. What did he do wrong? Why are you calling, Aunty Jen? I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what’s going on."
"He did nothing wrong." I admitted, because he hadn’t done anything. It was on him if he didn’t listen to me, and I was only butt hurt because I wanted things that weren’t possible.
Too fast, too soon, just too damn much.
"Savannah?" Jen called. "Are you still there?"
"Huh? What? Yeah, I’m still here. Sorry, just thinking."
"About what?"
"Have you ever loved someone?"
"Girl, you can’t love a one-night-stand. That’s just asking for trouble."
I snorted. "Trust me, I know, but it’s different."
"We always think that. I swear, it’s the patriarchy’s fault. Men can fuck whoever and whatever they want with no feelings involved but we have to get in our feelings just because some dick gave us an orgasm."
Because this wasn’t the first time I’d listened to a diatribe about a woman’s right to attachment-free orgasms, I muttered, "I know, Jen, but this is really different."
"How?"
"We met five years ago because he decided that instead of having me killed, he wanted to pick my brain." At her prolonged silence, I choked out a laugh. "Have I done the impossible? Robbed you of words?"
"You mean, you did something, wrote something that made the O’Donnellys consider taking a hit out on you?"
Her squeaky whisper was indicative of the fact that you didn’t say shit in this city about the O’Donnellys at top volume.
Even a mouthy bitch like my friend knew that.
"Yeah," I admitted. "It was weird."
"Sounds like it," she groused. "What happened?"
"Well, I’m still alive."
"Har-Har," she grumbled. "Come on, Savannah. Tell me! You can’t keep shit like that on the downlow."
"That’s exactly where I probably should keep it," I said with a sigh as I reached up and rubbed my tired eyes. "Have you ever looked at someone and felt like you’ve been hit with one of Cupid’s arrows? Like, out of nowhere, all the songs make sense?"
"Songs?"
"Yeah. You know, music?" I mocked. "Every love song ever written somehow resonates where it didn’t before. Have you never felt like that?"
"Not really. I mean, there’s been plenty of guys I want to bang. I don’t think you mean those kinds of songs, though, huh? Less Lizzo and more Carrie Underwood?"
Though I snorted, I said, "Yeah, more Carrie." Agitated, I fiddled with the necklace I wore, a tiny pendant of a paw my dad had bought me when Teabag, my cat, the one he’d bought me to keep me company when I left home and had gone to college, had died. "I was scared at first, but then we went out to dinner and he was different."
"Why did he take you out to dinner?"
"I don’t know. I guess he was interested in me."
I heard the soft noise of her sipping coffee, and then she asked, "You love him now, that’s what you’re saying, right?"
"No. I don’t know what it is. It can’t be that. It takes time for love to grow, doesn’t it?"
She hummed. "Well, I mean, you’re asking the wrong person. I’m not even sure it exists. It’s probably some hormonal wizardry that the doctors figured out how to put into the pill. That damn patriarchy again."
I rolled my eyes. "I’m not on the pill."
"Bullshit. Ain’t on the pill, she says. You get the shot, don’t you?"
I knew I’d pissed her off if she was saying ‘ain’t.’ She worked hard to sound like she fit in her corporate office.
"Yeah, but I wasn’t back then when I first met him." Considering he’d fucked me raw this morning, it was probably for the best I got the shot, now that I thought about it. "So your logic is flawed."
She scoffed. "Maybe they pipe something in the chemtrails."
"Jesus, Jen. What is this? Conspiracy O’Clock?"
"Sorry," she muttered, sounding unapologetic. "Okay, so these feelings, what was it then?"
"Like I wanted to fuck him, and I know he felt the same, but he didn’t. We didn’t. Not then."
"You didn’t screw him back then? Jesus. I never met him before the shooting, but I saw pictures of him. He was hawt."
"He’s hot now!" I defended.
"Yeah, but he has that look on his face. Ya know, like he’s suffering?"
"Because he is?" I grunted. This was exactly the reason why he needed to go to the doctor again. "Well, we didn’t fuck, even though I wanted to, and then he ghosted me.
"I had his phone number, so I called twice just... well, you know his line of work, only he never picked up, then like a week later, it was disconnected. I figured out he was ignoring me and wasn’t just lying in an alleyway somewhere."
"Jackass."
"Yeah," I said softly. "It hurt."
"It usually does."
"Worse than usual." I blew out a breath. "Then, I got the job offer with TVGM, and even though Wintersen eyed me up like I was his version of jelly beans, he never, ever touched me. I know that’s because Aidan got me the job. Earlier on, Conor told me that Wintersen has gone missing."
"Missing as in... he thinks Aidan had him killed?"