Truly.” She gestured behind her. “I do need to speak to a friend I was meeting here, though.”
Heather straightened, a near bristle. “Oh?”
“Yes. Please excuse me.” Ryan held up her second Smash, which had just arrived. “Thank you for these. I owe you.”
“Many ways to pay me back. I’ll be over here.”
Ryan nodded, not sure what to do with that. She gathered her courage and hoped to salvage what was left of the evening, traversing the crowd until she found Gabriella toward the front of the room, standing by herself. She closed her eyes, feeling awful. “Hi. Sorry about that.” She swallowed and waited for a response.
“Sorry about what exactly?” Gabriella asked. She was smiling at Ryan but it wasn’t real. She knew Gabriella’s real smile. It made her eyes light up and crinkle, and her face transform into a glow. This smile was plastic, for show only.
“For taking so long to come over. I got caught up in a dramatic thing.”
“Seemed like it. Heather, right? She was at the Scoot a couple weeks back with you.”
“Not with me.”
“Details.” She handed Ryan her empty glass. “Thank you for introducing me to this. Fabulous drink. These guys know what they’re doing. But I’m tired, and I think I’m going to go.”
“Go? What? Why?”
“I’ve been here for close to forty minutes, Ryan, and this is the first time you’ve spoken to me.”
Her defenses flared, whether justly or not. “Well, then, why didn’t you just come over and talk to me?”
Gabriella dipped her head and looked up at Ryan, her expression darkening. “It looked a little too cozy for three. But I did learn about a new cocktail,” she said, pointing at the empty glass. Ryan’s spirits hit the floor. “And tonight was educational. I’m glad we did this.”
She closed her eyes, willing it all to stop, for time to go backward so she could make tonight everything she was hoping it would be. “Don’t. Please. There’s a decent explanation for this. Heather needed a friend.”
“She definitely needed something, and you were there.” A pause. “Good night, Ryan. Enjoy whatever it is you have going.”
Gabriella didn’t seem angry. Resigned was a better word, as if she’d just received the bad news she’d expected all along and was rolling with it. Ryan felt like crying, which was something she rarely did. As Gabriella headed straight for the door, Ryan took stock. Yes, Heather had needed a friend, but Ryan should have handled that whole thing better. Nerves and alcohol had interfered with her decision making, and she’d fallen back into what she’d always known, what was comfortable, and shit, now what? How did she recover from this nosedive she’d allowed herself to plummet into? Her head swam and self-recrimination fired, but Ryan was determined to fix this misstep if it killed her. She hightailed it out of the bar into the parking lot where she saw Gabriella climbing into her green Jeep Wrangler.
“Wait, please.”
Gabriella looked up patiently.
“Can we talk before you go?” Ryan asked.
Gabriella sighed. Luckily, however, she closed the car door and walked the five steps until she stood in front of Ryan. “Sure we can,” she said maturely.
“I’m sorry tonight didn’t go how we planned.”
“Me, too.” She nodded, and for the first time, Ryan caught the sadness in her eyes. She wasn’t just mad and resigned. She was hurt. “You need to know how tonight made me feel. You invited me to the cool kids’ club and ignored me the whole time. I picked out my outfit, took a deep breath, and showed up here for you, only to be made to feel less important.”
God, that slashed at her. She tried to defend what was probably indefensible. “But you have to understand, Heather needed—”
“I hear you. Heather needed. I do. No major crime was committed here, and you and I are good.” She winced as she explained further, “But I fear there will always be Heathers with needs out there that you’ll tend to when called upon. I’m not a stand-in-the-background kind of girl. I know my limits and can save us both a lot of time and effort by acknowledging them.”
Ryan shook her head. “I screwed up. That’s what this is, but it’s not some kind of forecast.”
Gabriella paused. “Isn’t it, though?”
A car pulled up behind them, and they turned. Damn it all to hell. Heather eyed Ryan through her open car window. “How about that repayment? Hop in?”
Ryan closed her eyes, wanting the pavement to swallow her up. So not