“You’re such a dude,” I say with a laugh.
“I’m not a dude.” She sniffs. “I’m just bad at offering meaningless words of comfort. I’m better at action. What can I do to help? You want to stay here and write for a while, now that the tour is over? The Garret room over at the bed and breakfast is empty until August, when it goes on the rental calendar again. It’s hot as balls up there on sunny days, but it’s quiet.”
“You’re really going to rent it out?” I say, surprised. “I thought you loved being the mad woman at work in the attic.”
“I did, but it’s time for a change of scenery.” She looks at the weathered boards above us. “I’m thinking of selling this place, too.”
“What? Why?” Kirby bought this cottage just off the square with her first big royalty check. It’s been a fixture in our lives since we were barely old enough to buy liquor to fill up our flask.
She’s silent for a moment before she adds in a voice almost too soft to hear, “Peter is all over the place here.”
I turn to her, squinting in the shadows, but it’s too dark to know if she’s wearing a “let’s talk” expression or her “mention feelings and I’ll cut you” face. But any mention of her ex is rare enough that I can’t let it slide. “So how’s that going? The getting-over-Peter project?”
“Shitty.” She reaches over, her cool fingers brushing mine as she takes the flask. “I mean, ending it was absolutely the right thing to do. If he hadn’t, I would have, but…I don’t know. He was my longest relationship, the guy who knew me best in the whole world. And then he decided I was too much of a pain in the ass to stay in love with and left. It just…sucks.”
“He was the pain in the ass. He was clearly threatened by your confidence and success. And that was his problem, not yours. You’re a kick-ass lady, and that’s a scientific fact.”
“I don’t think that was his problem. I think it was…other stuff,” she says vaguely. “But thank you.”
“No thanks needed. Facts are facts.”
She hums, a little too dubiously. But before I can insist she own her awesome, she says, “I’ve dated a few guys since it ended, but nothing serious, and none of them got further than a goodnight kiss. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get into anyone around here.”
Now I’m grateful for the darkness hiding my shock. “Wow. So you mean…”
“I haven’t had sex in nine months.”
“Damn,” I mutter. “And you’re still alive?”
Kirby and I have only ever been friends—she’s been in a relationship with one tragically pale douchebag or another since we met in our freshman year of high school—but we’re close friends. We talk about everything, including our healthy sex drives, the ones that can apparently be overwhelming and/or irritating to people who don’t enjoy banging as much as we do.
I’m dreading the month of celibacy it will take to get these songs written like a prison sentence. But a year of genital isolation?
The thought alone makes my cock play the world’s tiniest violin.
“Yeah, I’m still alive,” Kirby says, taking a swig and swiping her hand across her lips. “But just barely.”
“Is it because you’re still hung up on Peter?” I ask, trying to keep my distaste for Mr. Puce from my voice.
“No. I’m over him, I really am,” she says. “It’s more that I feel lost, unsure what comes next. I just know I don’t want to settle for meh, and meh is all that’s left around here. All the good guys are already coupled up and starting to make babies. I have to flip the script, find a new dating pool before my vagina shrivels up and blows away.”
I shudder. “Yeah, don’t let that happen. Twenty-nine’s way too young to lose your vagina. So where are you moving?”
“I don’t know. But somewhere. Soon. I’m taking a week off to binge watch all the TV I missed while I was on deadline and debate the options. Then I’m going.”
“I’m taking a week off, too,” I say. “But I was thinking of heading somewhere less family friendly. Like Atlantic City.”
Kirby makes a gagging sound.
“I know, I know.” I laugh. “But I can’t go to Vegas unsupervised. You-know-who lives there, and you know what happened the last time.”
“How could I forget?” she huffs. “I can’t believe you married She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Thank God for annulments.”
“Amen,” I agree soberly. “And thank God for friends who mock your evil exes in their books.”
“Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental,” Kirby says, but there’s a grin in her voice. “But you’re welcome. Some people deserve to be turned into evil vampire clowns. And the answer is yes, by the way.”
“The answer to what?” I pause with the flask an inch from my lips, wondering if I’m drunker than I think I am, ’cause I don’t remember asking a question.
“Yes, I will go to Vegas with you.” Her face is illuminated in the glow of her cell as she taps at the screen. “I’ll message my assistant in California. She’ll still be awake, and she’ll get us a hotel and two tickets on an affordable flight.”
If this were anyone but Kirby, I’d ask if she was joking, but I know her better than that. Kirby is never spontaneous. Until she is, and then, watch out, because she’s the kind of crazy that will lead to just about anything.
It’s one of the reasons I love her so damned much.
On impulse, I lean in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Tell her first class all the way. I’m paying.”
Kirby’s lips quirk as her eyes dart back and forth between the phone and me, making it clear I threw her with the kiss. “Shut up. You are not. We’ll share, and we’ll go coach. Only assholes fly first class.”
“Well, I’m an asshole, and I can’t fly coach without getting mobbed by fans,” I say, kissing her cheek again, just for the fun of seeing her flustered. “First class.”
“Coach. You can wear a hat. And stop kissing me, weirdo.”
“Why? Because you like it so much?” I tease, squeezing her thigh above the knee where her skirt ends, making her twitch and slap my fingers away with one hand as she hits send on her text with the other.
“Yes, you ass-wipe. I haven’t been touched below the neck in nine months. My skin is starving. If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me want things I shouldn’t.”
The confession hits me and—zot!—I’m ice. I’m locked in carbonite. I’m thinking I’ll spend my days as a gobsmacked objet d’art, when Kirby laughs and says, “Gotcha.”
I suck in a breath and choke on whiskey fumes. “Shit, you had me. I thought you were serious.”
“Of course not,” she says, shutting off her phone and sticking it in her jacket pocket. “But now that I think about it…”
I narrow my eyes her way, heart zooming again, wishing she hadn’t plunged us back into the dark. I can almost always get a read on Kirby’s face, but without the visual clues, her dry delivery fools me every time. “But now that you think about what? Don’t fuck with me again, Larry. I’m drunk. And fragile.”