She glances past me again. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“They never do, honey,” Dixie says, and she’s suddenly got a southern drawl. Dear God.
Kate rushes toward the elevator but not before telling me, “You’re a dick.”
I close the door as soon as she steps onto the elevator, and the giggles from the living room erupt. I watch Dixie pull the pillow out from under her shirt and follow her as we turn the corner into the large living room. Sadie and Winnie are both sprawled on the L-shaped couch holding their stomachs and wailing with laughter.
Dixie throws the pillow at me and collapses onto my custom-made armchair with a gleeful smile. “I don’t think she’ll be bothering you again.”
“Ya don’t think?” I ask and cock an eyebrow while glaring at her. It just makes the three of them laugh more.
“Jude, you have texted me in the middle of the night and forced me to come over and play a jealous girlfriend in order to kick out clingers before,” Dixie reminds me. “The role is getting old so I thought I would challenge myself.”
“Yeah, I guess pregnant wife is a stretch since you haven’t even had a boyfriend since high school,” I reply and grin at my own catty retort. As expected, I get an “ooh” from Sadie and Winnie, but Dixie isn’t bothered in the least.
“I’m not trying to rush into anything I’m not ready for.” Dixie shrugs and then levels her blue eyes at me like lasers. “Unlike you.”
The unison “ooh” from the peanut gallery gets louder. Great. As if being woken up at four in the morning, in front of my sisters, by a clingy and horny one-night stand didn’t suck enough, now we’re going to talk about Tessa.Fucking great.
“I’m going back to bed,” I snap, and as I turn to walk back to the master, the sorority goes back to doing what they do best—talking about me like I’m not in the room, even though I actually am. Sisters. Worst invention ever.
I close the door to my room with a bang. I make my way over to my bed and stand at the foot of it staring at my rumpled sheets as I unzip my jeans. Tessa is a great girl. She’s beautiful, kind, funny and smart. I think that’s what upsets me the most—that she literally has everything I’ve always said I wanted in a girl and yet I couldn’t take the relationship seriously. Holy fuck, I wanted to, but I just couldn’t.
That’s what I still get angry about. That’s what stings every time I see her. Not that she picked someone else, but that she did it because I couldn’t be a fucking man and stay monogamous. And yeah, okay, maybe the fact that she fell in love with my best friend stung a little bit. At first when I was really bitter and really drunk, I thought about revenge. But I honestly wasn’t angry at her, only angry at myself. I saw the way she looked at Levi. She loved him in a way she never came close to loving me. I was angry because I would never have a girl look at me like that. I’m just not a one-woman kind of guy.
I drop onto my bed and tuck both arms under the pillow beneath my head. I stare up at my ceiling. I just want to stop thinking about it. About her. About the personal failure she represents. I wish I could.
I finally fall asleep a couple hours after the early-morning intrusion only to be woken up a little after nine by the sorority. They’re yakking in the living room or kitchen or somewhere and cackling with laughter. They always fucking cackle when they’re together. I’ve heard them laugh when they’re not in a pack, when it’s just one of them with me somewhere, and each has a pleasant, subdued laugh. But put the three of them in the same space, and it’s this loud, shrill cackle.
It’s Saturday, so why the hell are they up at this hour? The one thing I actually enjoy about my siblings is that they’ve always been late sleepers, like me. When we were teenagers, if my parents didn’t have to wake us for our part-time jobs or hockey, we’d all sleep until well after noon. A few months ago, when Sadie and Winnie visited for the weekend and they all stayed here, they slept until almost two in the afternoon both days.
The yammering and cackling aren’t subsiding and I can’t block them out, even with my pillow over my head, which only serves to make me feel like I’m suffocating. So I groan and swear and drag myself out of bed. This time, instead of jeans, I make my way to the open walk-in closet and grab a pair of sweats and a tank top, and I open my bedroom door and pad barefoot toward the incessant noise.
Dixie is sitting on the counter next to the coffee machine. Sadie and Winnie are at the kitchen table, both holding coffee mugs, and they have their feet up on my table. I shove their feet off as I walk by, heading to the coffee machine. Dixie smiles at me and hands me her full, untouched latte. “Here you go, grumpy. I’ll make a new one.”
I grunt my gratitude and take a sip. Sadie puts her feet back on the table, shooting me a defiant glare. I ignore her, because it’s the easiest solution. She turns to Dixie. “So eleven?”
“Yep.” Dixie nods and puts a new mug under the spout and hits the button for another latte. The machine rumbles loudly. “I can’t believe she lives here or that I randomly ran into her. I’m hardly ever in that area of town.”
Good. They’re going out, so I can go back to napping. I should hit the gym, but I’ll do that later. Probably.
Winnie sits up and flips her dirty-blond hair. “Does she look the same?”
Dixie nods. “Yep. Still has that gorgeous dark red hair and that incredible freckleless skin.”
I stop staring at the foam on my latte and move my eyes to Dixie. She’s pouring milk into the little metal frothing cup and sticking it under the steamer arm, all while still planted on the counter. If she’s not careful she’ll fall on her face, but that’s not my concern. My concern is who they might be talking about.
“Remember I used to say she looked like a doll? Her skin was like porcelain.” Sadie sighs.
Porcelain skin. Dark red hair. That brings back memories. I take another sip of latte. “You guys are reminding me of Maine.”
“That’s because we’re talking about who you think we’re talking about,” Winnie replies. I stop mid-latte-sip, the liquid scalding my lip. I pull the cup back and wipe foam from my top lip.
“Zoey Quinlin?” God. I haven’t said her name in forever.
Dixie just nods casually as she sips her new latte. Casually. Like this isn’t a big deal. And of course if I act like it’s a big deal—which it is—they’ll tease me mercilessly about it until the end of time. Because that’s what the sorority does best.
“Crazy that she’s out here in San Francisco,” I say in a low-key tone, to stick with this “no big deal” façade my sisters have going on. “She’s living here? Or is she visiting?”
