against the arm of the couch, I say nonchalantly, “Because apparently our night wasn’t as spectacular for him as it was for me.”
“What?” Nikki shouts. “Why would you say that? The guy was practically fucking you from the bar with his eyes.”
I shrug. “When I woke the next morning, he was already gone. No note, no goodbye, nothing.”
I say the words with no emotion at all, pretending like I’m not still hurt from waking up the next morning to find him gone and no signs of him ever being there. It’s dumb. We both agreed to one night of fun with no strings. He was simply following through with our plan. My feelings should have never come into play. But damn it, he played my body like a fiddle and left me wanting more.
“What was his name?” Juliet asks.
“He said Taylor, but I got the feeling it was fake.”
“You never know, he knows where you live. Maybe he’ll show up sometime.”
I shrug again and spin around on the couch to plant my feet on the floor. I wiggle my newly painted light-blue toes in the plush carpet. I really fucking love gel polish. It cuts down the drying time to only minutes.
“I’m not really sure if I want him to,” I admit. “I mean, there’s bound to be something wrong with him. He can’t be perfect in looks, in the sack, and in everything else. No one is that perfect.”
“James is.”
“James is an anomaly.”
“That he is,” Juliet says with a big grin. She claps her hands and hops up from the couch. “Our toenails are done. You both need to finish getting ready or we’re going to be late.”
Nikki groans and rolls over to her back. “I still can’t believe you talked us into this. Skydiving? Really, J?”
“Hey, you know I’ve always wanted to do it. And what better way than to have my fiancé and my best friends with me?”
“Umm… because it’s really going to suck for you if we all plummet to our deaths. You’ll lose your fiancé and best friends all in one day.”
“The probability of your parachute not working is like one in over a hundred thousand, so the chance of all of your parachutes not working is about one in three hundred thousand. I think we’re pretty safe.”
“Yeah, but the probability isn’t zero like it would be if we stayed on the ground. I don’t like playing chance with my life.”
“You’ll get over it. Now get up.” She lays a loud smack on Nikki’s ass as she walks by. “James will be here in fifteen minutes.”
Grumbling, Nikki rolls out of bed and tears off her shirt, switching it out for one from her suitcase. I shimmy out of my sleep shorts and pull on a pair of loose fitted jeans.
Although I’ve put in my fair share of complaints about this skydiving adventure Juliet is forcing us into, a small part of me is excited. It scares the shit out of me to think I’ll be plummeting to the earth from fifteen thousand feet in the air, but it’s also exhilarating to know I’ll be totally free. It’s not something I’d ever do on my own, and I’d refused when Juliet first came to us with the idea, but eventually I said fuck it. The way I see it, if my parachute fails, it’s pretty much a guaranteed death sentence, so it’s not like I’ll live to regret it.
“I swear, if I die today, one of you bitches better wipe my computer,” Nikki gripes as she pushes her feet into a pair of sneakers. “The last thing I need is for my parents to see all the shit I’ve looked up.”
“You’re not going to die,” Juliet replies exasperated. There’s a rap at the door and she drops her phone on the nightstand to go answer it.
“But still. If I do, my computer gets wiped.” She stands and faces me. “Promise me you’ll do it.”
“You know I’ve got your back.” I give her a wink.
Nikki writes dark romance novels for a living. I’ve seen some of the shit she’s looked up. I’ve even looked up some of it myself. I can understand her worry about her parents finding some of her research. Lord forbid if the government ever got a hold of her computer. She’d be accused of being a deranged psychotic stalker-slash-killer.
“You ladies ready?” James rumbles from the doorway after he’s managed to unseal his lips from Juliet.
“Yes,” I say at the same time Nikki says