Carmela looked at the wine glasses. “I’m getting another bottle.”
“You really do look great, Rye,” Andy said, giving her a fond once-over.
Nick reached over and hiked up the neckline of her dress.
“Nick,” Riley hissed.
“Oh, good. You remember my name.”
“Excuse us for a minute,” she said, dragging him into the hall. She chose a door at random, found an empty powder room, and pushed him inside. “What iswrongwith you?I’msupposed to be the embarrassment tonight. Not you.”
He looked green and twitchy.
“You and my brother-in-law. Naked. More than once.”
“It was a long time ago. Neither one of us was a virgin when we met,” she reminded him.
He paused mid-pace and swiped both hands down his face. “Oh my God. There are others?” Whirling around, he turned on the faucet in the sink and shoved his face under it.
“Take a breath before you pass out,” she suggested, dragging him out from under the spray and handing him a towel.
“What is this feeling?” he demanded, tugging at his shirt like it was too tight. “It’s horrible. I feel nauseous and sweaty, and I just want to punch Andy in his fucking face. No one besides my sister wants to punch that guy in the face. He’s too agreeable. What’s happening to me?”
She chewed on her lip for a second. “Maybe you’re jealous?”
“Maybeyou’rejealous,” he shot back. “Sorry. Reflex. This isn’t your fault. Of course you have a past. I just never thought about how it would feel to meet your past.”
She took his face in her hands and held him still. “Look at me.”
“I can’t. I’m looking at your boobs, which look amazing in that dress, and now there’s another guy remembering your boobs in my parents’ dining room.” He tried to rearrange her dress again, and when that didn’t work, he tried pushing her breasts deeper into the garment.
She took a step back and slapped his hands away. “You met Griffin and didn’t have this kind of reaction.”
“Griffin Gentry is a short, whiny asshole who screwed you over. You’d never go back to that pre-pubescent turd, and he’s too stupid to know how badly he fucked up.” He was referring to her spray-tanned news anchor ex-husband and the lawsuit he’d filed and won against her after she broke his nose with their wedding picture when she caught him in their bed with a twenty-something weather girl named Bella Goodshine.
Not only had Nick punched Griffin in the face on camera, he’d also managed to get him to drop the settlement so she no longer had to write her cheating ex a check every month. Nick had been tight-lipped on the how, and Riley decided it was better if she didn’t know all the details.
“Thorn, baby, is this how you feel when we run into someone I…”
“Slept with?” she suggested.
“Oh my God. I made you go get coffee with me and Jonesy. Thorn, you should have told me this is physical torture. I had no idea. I would never—”
She held up her hands. “Maybe you had no idea because you don’t still have feelings for the legion of women you went to bed with.”
“Of course I don’t have feelings for them!”
“And I don’t have feelings for Andy.”
He took a breath and let it out. “Okay. That’s good. I can work with that. Maybe I don’t need to murder him with a salad fork and throw his body in the Susquehanna.”
“That’s probably a good thing because I think your sister can take you.”
“She’s terrifying,” he agreed. “You’re sure you don’t have feelings for him?” Nick asked, sliding his hands up and down her waist.
“Feelings? No. Fond memories? Yes.”
He closed his eyes and growled. “Great. Now I want to kill him again.”
