And she was about to experience it again.
She stepped into the valet area to find Dylan packing his bags into the trunk of his Audi. Ugh, she was too hungover for a repeat of their awkward morning. She needed to clear the air, though, before they both went their separate ways and ended up at some group event in the near future with this weird tension still simmering.
“Dylan,” she called, dragging her suitcase over the curb with a thud. “Hey.”
He looked her up and down as she approached, but his expression was flat, like he was looking at a stranger. Maybe he was just hungover too.
“Hey, Dani.”
Something soured in her stomach at the sound of her real name. From him it felt formal. Off. Where was Dani-pie?
“Listen, about earlier. I meant what I said about us being friends. Can we just go back to the way things were?”
Dylan licked his bottom lip and smiled thinly. “Of course.”
“Oh.” He’d said that awfully quickly, but she supposed she didn’t have a right to claim a bruised ego. She knew exactly who she was dealing with. “Okay. Well, good. I was worried.”
“Hey, we’re grown-ups. We’ve both done this before. If you don’t want anything to change, then nothing will change.”
If she didn’t want it to? What exactly did that mean? She opened her mouth to question him, but he was giving her a look like the conversation was over. Maybe it wasn’t worth it. Expounding on loaded sentences like that were what drama was made of, and drama was why you didn’t drown your sorrows by sleeping with your best friend’s husband’s best friend.
“Great,” she said. “Glad we cleared that up. Again.”
“Yup. Me too.” He gave her a salute, then slammed his trunk, heading for the driver’s side. “I’ll see you around, Dani.”
“Okay.” Her head started to pound just thinking about it.
Four
“So this is Cat’s boyfriend-now-husband’s best friend?” Benji asked.
“That’s the one.”
“You little fiend! Does Cat know?”
Benji had never met Cat, or Josh or Dylan for that matter, but they’d been sharing an office at Root Media long enough that he knew all the characters in her stories. Just like she knew that his boyfriend Ronnie was in Northern California for the weekend for his old roommate’s fortieth birthday, and Benji was pretending he wasn’t jealous but secretly he was stalking them all on Instagram like Hipster Sherlock Holmes.
“Cat does not know, but she’s in Hawaii for a week. It will be old news by the time she gets back. No need to share.”
“Would she be upset?”
“Of course not. I don’t think.”
Benji rolled his office chair over to Dani’s desk and propped his elbows on the edge, resting his neatly-bearded chin in his hand. One of his unruly, rust-colored curls fell across his forehead and he blew it aside. “Show me a picture.”
“Ugh. Fine.” This was part of the game they’d been playing for years. Benji would pretend to beg for gossip and Dani would pretend to be put out, but honestly, it was refreshing to have someone outside of their inner circle to talk to about the inner circle.
She turned her laptop toward him and opened a few pictures she had uploaded from the wedding. She’d intended to use the photo-editing software her office owned to spruce them up and give them to Cat when she got home from her honeymoon. Even without touching up, though, everyone looked great. Especially Dylan. Maybe she was showing off a little.
“Here you go.”
Benji leaned forward, peering through his wire-rimmed glasses. “Oh, I remember him. The charity 5k your friend made you do. You showed me pictures and you talked about his ass in those shorts for days afterward.”
She rolled her eyes at the hyperbole. It was maybe like one day. “Do you write down everything I say?”
Benji pointed at her. “This has been brewing for some time.”
“That’s an overstatement. Dylan and I have a certain flirty chemistry and maybe it was bound to happen eventually, but now it did, and I’m over it.”
Benji crossed his arms and frowned. “And why exactly are we over Mr. Adorable Smile?”
She shot him a look. “Because maybe I want more than just an adorable smile. Look at this picture.” She clicked again to enlarge a candid of the whole group. She’d been studying it for two days, lamenting. It was right after the official pictures had been taken, when everyone’s dates had rejoined them. Shawn and Minnie leaned against the chapel wall, chatting. Sonya and Marcus hugged, probably counting down the minutes until it was their turn. And then there was Cat and Josh—their foreheads pressed together, beaming at each other as if the photographer had posed them that way. He hadn’t.
And there she was, third-wheeling it with Emma and her husband.
Cat’s wedding had been like being flown around by some ghost from a Christmas movie. Look at what you could have had, Danica. But now you’re alone. Muhahaha.
She clicked away the photo and pressed her eyes closed. “I guess maybe it’s cliché, but Cat getting married just has me thinking that maybe I want someone too. I mean, for God’s sake. I slept with Dylan because I was feeling sorry for myself. If that isn’t a warning to get my life together, I don’t know what is.”
Benji’s eyes went wide. “Wow. Could this be the end of an era? Dani Petrillo hangs up her single-life badge and settles down?”
“I’m just tired, Benj. Dating isn’t easy and it’s a lot less easy when you’re the last one in the game. It used to be all of us girls going out on the weekends, taking road trips, and now it’s just… me. I guess staying at home on the couch and eating take out with a good guy doesn’t sound so bad anymore.”
Benji laughed. Dani had been rolling her eyes at his Netflix and Chill weekends for a while now. She supposed she deserved his amusement.
“A friend of Ronnie’s just tried this dating site,” he said. “He’s one of the guys on this boys weekend. He had to go and get himself coupled up leaving Ron and the birthday boy the only ones going stag on this trip. Anyway, I digress. The point is, last time we saw him, he was singing from the rooftops about it. We didn’t even know he was looking and then boom. Magic. They’re talking about moving in. And he’s cute!”
“How cute?” she asked suspiciously. Benji was a little more forgiving when it came to men’s grooming habits. The two of them rarely agreed.
“Adorable!” He pulled out his phone and started scrolling. “The site is called Eight Dates to Your Soulmate.”