Tavi clucks her tongue in disapproval. “Hoes before bros, Arya. You know this.”
Eden continues loudly, “Aftershe comes to my place telling me she wants to stay with me, and we’re going to coordinate our schedules so my security detail will always be around and she’ll feel safe. Five minutes later, Erik shows up and she leaves with him. No ‘goodbye, Eden.’Nada.”
Pressing my lips between my teeth, I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yes, you do,” Tavi says gently. “Here, drink some before it’s gone.” She shoves the cup so close to my head it grazes my ear.
“Jesus.” I grab it and, after a moment, take a huge swig. Ghastly sweet, but smooth and creamy. Snapping the top closed, I grimace. As I hold it over my shoulder, I say, “Yeah, he’s ice cold. No surprise there.”
“How about the equipment?” Tavi says in a mock clinical voice. As though she’s doing research on dicks and needs to add him to her study.
“Yeah, he’s huge.”And great in bed, I add in my own mind. But it doesn’t matter because we are not going to work. Which is one more thing that’s upsetting me right now.
Tavi whistles before drinking the rest of the cocktail. “So what I hear you saying is it doesn’t matter what his personality is like. Because…damn.”
I exhale a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t know, Tav.”
That giant list of Casanova suspects sickened me because it proves it’s not enough for there to be one sadistic prick who rapes and kills. We have to be surrounded by them. And some of them have positions so powerful that even if someone could catch them, they might still get away with it. Ralston? The fucking dean? There could be fifty victims before someone arrests one of them.
Same issue with Leighton Miller. Why isn’t he already in jail for his vicious dog attacks? Expensive lawyers, of course. A wave of nausea hits me. My finger jabs the button to roll down the window. I suck in frigid air through an open mouth, all the while preparing to lurch forward to retch out the window if I need to.
Although, I may not need to worry about these men escaping justice because the Viking is apparently a brutal killer, too. I shiver uncontrollably.
“You think you won’t last with him?” Tavi asks with a tilt of her head, forcing me to circle back to the conversation at hand.
“We’re wrong for each other. Plus, he’s going to be furious when he realizes I borrowed a bunch of money. I just need it today because I can’t withdraw the new funds in my account yet.”
Eden’s brows furrow. “What money? If you need cash, Arya, I’ll cover you.”
“I know. It’s fine. Just ignore me. There are dead bodies popping up and bombs exploding. I can’t take it. I haven’t been sleeping… it’s a whole thing.”
“What bombs? And you’re not sleeping again? You need to take something,” Eden says.
My voice is low now because I’ve gotten out part of what I needed to say. “Is all the chocolate martini gone?”
“Just for a minute,” Tavi says, sitting forward and rubbing my temples with her fingertips. “Close your eyes and rest. I’ll get us some more in Boston.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry for being such a bitch.”
I wish I could close my eyes while Tavi massages my head. But I know if I close them, I’ll see bodies or blood. So instead, I do my box breathing and count cars. It helps get me from one minute to the next.
I need to rest. But there’s no prescription drug that will fix what’s really wrong with my life. How I wish there was.
26
ARYA
Several hours later, I’m buzzed and melancholy.
A drunken Tavi announces magnanimously she wants to introduce us to her boyfriend, Jeff Tremblay. And to keep things cozy, we can all sleep in his bed if we want. That’s Tavi code for “I’m open to having a foursome.”
“That sounds great,” Eden purrs.
Tremblay has a thirty-million-dollar 6500-square-foot penthouse apartment in Back Bay. The view isn’t what has Eden excited, though.
Tilting my head so I can look up at the building, I shrug. “I’m going to bow out.”
“You don’t have to join in,” Tavi says quickly. “You can sleep in a guest room.”
