Her arms wrapped around my neck and she hugged me. “It’s a stupid plan,” she whispered in my ear.
“I know,” I whispered back.
“But we can be stupid together.” She giggled, giving me a last squeeze and then let go, crawling over the center console to twist the radio dial, blasting hip hop through the car.
The music was loud, their energy infectious, and neither distracted me when my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket and looked at the display. Vic. I silenced the phone and considered, in a moment of tequila-fueled insanity, rolling down the window and chucking it out. It would have been deliciously dramatic. A clear sign to my subconscious that I was done with Vic. It also would have been as stupid as me chopping off my right arm. I tightened my grip on my cell and stuffed it back in my pocket. Pasted a smile on my face and looked away from the window.
Benta stared at me, her eyes narrowed.
“What?” I gave her an innocent face.
“Do I need to take your phone?”
My hand tightened on my cell for one weak moment. Then I pulled it out and handed it over. “Yes. Please.”
I wouldn’t have listened to his voicemail. Wouldn’t have let, whatever he said, influence me or affect the night. I wouldn’t have, a few drinks later, huddled in a corner of the bar and called him. Told him through tears and alcohol, that I still loved him. That I still missed him. That I wanted him and our old life back.
I was sure I wouldn’t have done any of that. But, just in case, I let Benta hold on to the phone. Sometimes we all needed protection from ourselves.
I’d been to Whiskey Bravo before, knew the relative location of the ladies room and deck, but we got pulled in by the crowd and ended up upstairs, in a dark corner that I’d never seen. There was an open table there, and we pounced on it. My clutch stuck in between my knees, the stool cool against the back of my thighs, an air vent blew right down, flattening my hair in a manner that couldn’t be attractive. But it was a table. And in a hot bar, on a Friday night in New York, you took a seat, wherever it was.
“HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?” Cammie yelled across the tiny table at me, her voice barely audible over the music and the wheezing air vent.
I shook my head, saving my voice.
“WE’RE NEVER GOING TO FIND HIM HERE,” she continued, Benta covering her right ear as she shot Cammie an irritated look. The poor woman. Stuck in the middle of us, she’d be deaf by dawn.
“Who are you looking for?” The voice didn’t have to shout; it spoke at my ear, the tickle of breath delicious against my skin, and I craned around, looking up into Carter’s face. I smiled.
“Hey.” My greeting got lost in the noise and he lowered his head, putting his ear to my mouth. “Hey,” I repeated and wanted to bite into his neck and suck him into my soul. Someday, when we were babysitting grandchildren, this would be the story I’d tell. The day eloquent Grandma said “Hey,” while stuffed into the corner of a crowded club.
“Been here long?”
I shook my head and my cheek hit his mouth. His hand reached out and settled on my bare knee, the touch electric. I tried to draw in a breath without shaking. God … his touch. It brought to mind his push of me back on his dining room table. The moment during the night when he trailed his fingers across my arm. His mouth, buried between my legs…
“Who are you looking for?” He repeated the question from earlier and I pulled back a little, tilting my head up and looking into his eyes.
I opened my mouth, and honesty fell out. “You.”
His eyes smiled, and his mouth twitched. I gripped the edge of the table and kept myself from reaching for him. “Want to get out of here?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t have heard me but he read my lips and squeezed my knee, running his hand up to my hip, and he helped me off the stool. Leaning across the table he shook Benta’s hand, then Cammie’s, introducing himself while never letting go of me, his hand at my back, keeping me in place at his side.
“I’m stealing Chloe,” I heard him shout to them. “Is that okay?”
“FOR TONIGHT?” Cammie hollered back.
He looked