She wanted this to feel normal. Surely, the thing with Jackson under the willow tree had been a fluke. There was no way that she still wanted Mo. Not after everything he’d done. She wanted something nice and steady like Helena and Malcolm had. But she’d always felt this heat around Mo. He made her restless like heat lightning on a summer’s night. Just ready to go off without any provocation.
“Good. Busy,” he said. “You?”
His voice was a low rumble but easy for her to hear despite the music. She’d always liked the way he sounded. She put her head on his shoulder for a second and closed her eyes, pretended that this wasn’t the bad idea she knew it was, and then made herself stand up straight and step away from him.
“Good, Mo. Really, good,” she lied, but then “fake it till you make it” had been her mom’s mantra for her and her sister growing up so she figured that was okay. The song ended and she started to leave the dance floor. “Thanks for the dance.”
She walked away without looking back and forced herself to put on a smile as she climbed onto the high bar stool at the table where her friends were.
“Girl, what are you thinking?” Josie asked.
“That I did it. I danced with him, played it cool and nothing happened,” she said.
Zuri shook her head. “You’re full of it, but we’re good friends so we’ll let you get away with it. Another round of shots to celebrate you keeping your cool.”
Hadley drank another round with her friends and ordered nachos as they talked about the men in the bar. Manu Barrett, the former NFL defensive end who now coached football at the local high school, came over with a tray of shots for Josie. Her friend was the art teacher at the high school and Manu had been asking Josie out for the last month or so, but he was a player. Josie and Manu hit the dance floor, and Zuri and Hadley just watched their friend for a minute.
“She’s smitten,” Hadley said.
“Who’s smitten? Remind me again why we came to the Bull Pit tonight?” Helena asked as she slid onto a bar stool next to Zuri and reached over to take one of the shots that Manu had brought.
“Josie is smitten and we are here because you set Mom on me. It’s been a long-ass week,” Hadley said.
“And, girl, you’ve been working too hard,” Zuri said to Helena. “You need a night out. Where is your other half?”
“He’s in Houston to close a deal. He won’t be back until tomorrow, which is why I suggested book club,” Helena said.
“This is better than book club because we don’t all have to discuss something that we’ve only read the back cover of,” Hadley said with a laugh.
“True. But the book I recommended is getting really good buzz over at the Paperback Reader. Teddi expressly recommended it because she thought we’d all love it,” Helena said. “It’s about an undercover prince.”
As a CPA, Hadley’s sister did the accounting for a lot of the bespoke small businesses in Cole’s Hill. Teddi had been the bookworm in Helena’s class in high school, so no one had been surprised when she’d opened a bookstore after college.
“I’m going to read it next week,” Hadley said. She needed something to take her mind off Mauricio and a prince in disguise sounded right up her alley.
“So you and Mo?”
“There is no me and Mo, Hel,” Hadley said.
“It didn’t look that way when you were dancing,” Zuri said.
Hadley shook her head. “You know the worst part about breaking up?”
“No, tell us,” Zuri said wriggling her eyebrows at Hadley. “You’re the expert.”
Her friend had clearly had too much tequila, she thought as she shook her head. “I was just going to say that all the feelings don’t just disappear. I mean anger should burn away all the other stuff...”
“What brought this on?” Helena asked. “Is it because things didn’t work out with Jackson?”
“You let Jackson go?” Zuri asked. “I’m out of town for a few days and I missed everything. When did this happen? You two looked pretty cozy at the engagement party.”
“Ugh. We were but then we decided we’d be better off as friends,” Hadley said. Maybe she’d had too much tequila. She should never have brought this up.
“Friends... He friend-zoned you? Dude better check himself. It’s not like we don’t all remember he used to be a total nerd.”
“No, it was the other way around,” Hadley protested.
“He’s hot now,” Helena said, signaling the waiter and ordering another plate of nachos and margaritas for the four of them.
“He is,” Zuri said. “I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed.”
“No one would,” Helena added. “Except for Had.”
“I didn’t do that. Here comes Josie,” she said. Thank God. She was tired of discussing how she let Jackson slip away and she definitely didn’t want to talk about Mauricio, who was over by the pool table laughing with his brothers. She couldn’t help watching him as he lined up a shot. Of course, he had to wear those skintight Levi’s tonight, making matters worse.
“I think we know why it didn’t work with Jackson,” Zuri said.
“What?” she asked, turning back to her friends, her sister and Manu, who were all watching her stare at Mo and his brothers.
“Y’all are crazy. So, Manu, are you joining us?”
Everyone turned their attention to Manu and Josie, and Hadley forced herself to focus on the nachos and margarita, but a part of her was listening for Mauricio’s laugh. Which was the last thing she needed to be doing right now. She was moving on...except now that she’d danced with him, she wasn’t sure she had.
Helena smiled and laughed with her friends, and for the first time since she discovered the money missing from the wedding account felt like herself again. Her mom had told her that marriage was a million little compromises. But Helena had never really been someone who could just let things go. She was a control freak when it came to money, though she didn’t know why. Their family had always had more than enough when she and Hadley were growing up.
But she’d never been someone who could waste money just because she had it and that’s what this thing with Mal felt like.
“You are looking way too serious,” Hadley said, handing her a shot of tequila. The nachos were long gone. Josie was on the dance floor pressed against Manu, and Zuri had decided to see if she could tempt one of the astronaut trainees from NASA into having a bit of fun.
That left the Everton sisters, who were sitting at the table like two spinsters.
“Can’t help it,” she said, doing the shot and then turning the glass upside down on the tabletop.
“Don’t worry, I’m handling Mom,” Had said.
Helena smiled and nodded at her sister. She was the eldest and she had always taken her job as the big sister seriously. She wasn’t about to cry on Hadley’s shoulder because she didn’t know where Malcolm was tonight or where that money had gone. She was going to keep it together, keep her smile in place and fix whatever was going on with Mal privately.
“Thanks for that,” Helena said.
“Be right back. Want another shot?” Hadley asked.
“Water would be better,” she said.
Hadley nodded and danced her way to the bar as Mauricio came over to the table.