“The world would be a better place.”
He slows and turns into the hospital parking lot, pulling right up to the front doors. “Go!” he commands and I start to open the car door but turn back around.
I grab his face in my hands and press my lips to his. I kiss him with every shred of energy left in me. When I finally let him go his eyes are dark and glassy and his lips full. “This job has taken a lot from me today. I wanted to take something back.”
I jump out of the car and run into the building. I find my sisters in the emergency waiting room, but my mom and dad are nowhere to be found. Sadie stands up. “False labor.”
“Thank God.”
“Yeah, because if it were real, that kid would be here by now and you’d have missed it,” Winnie remarks with a half smile on her face. “And you’d have lost any chance at being the favorite aunt.”
“I got here as soon as I could,” I reply defensively.
“Mom and Dad left already. Dad was exhausted and he’s still under the weather,” Winnie tells me. “Levi and that sweet girlfriend of his just left like a minute ago with Jude and Zoey.”
“You should have told me it was a false alarm so I didn’t rush over here.” I follow along beside them as we make our way toward the front doors I just burst through.
“No, we wanted you to show up,” Sadie explains with a wicked grin flashing across her features. “So we could take you out for drinks.”
“I have to work in the morning. In fact I should be working now,” I explain. “I canceled a pitch with ALS to come here.”
Winnie rolls her eyes and grabs onto my arm. “Oh my God! Quit being Corporate Climbing Barbie and just come have fun with us. I know you know how. You used to be good at it.”
“I still am.” I fight the urge to say no to them because I really could use some sister bonding. “Okay, fine. Just a couple drinks. Not some late-night bender.”
“Sure,” Sadie says, but she completely winks at Winnie right in front of me.
“I mean it!” I bellow as they hook their arms through mine and lead me out the door.
They take me to some crazy Western-themed bar with a live band and a mechanical bull in the middle of the room. I have no idea how they found this place or why the bartender knows them by name. I would ask, but I’m sure I don’t want to know the answer. Eli texts me as we grab a table.
Jude was home when I dropped off the car.
Explained the false start.
Did you get home from the hospital ok?
“Winnie, look! She’s smiling.”
“Oh! I know that smile,” Winnie announces. “That smile is caused by a man.”
“Shut up, you two,” I mumble and start to text him back, but Sadie swipes my phone out of my hand and bolts from the table. “What the actual hell!”
Winnie cackles with laughter and as I jump off my stool to chase after Sadie, she catches my arm. “You know resistance is futile, Little D.”
I sigh and sit back down. “Don’t call me that. Only Dad gets to call me that.”
“Of course.” Winnie rolls her eyes as Sadie comes back to the table skipping and smiling ear-to-ear. She puts my phone down on the table and I grab it.
“What did you do?” I demand as she smiles coyly and flips her long hair over her shoulder.
“I told him to come join us,” she announces. “Well, you told him, since it’s your phone. I also told him…I mean you also told him you miss the feel of his mouth on your body.”
She turns and high-fives Winnie as my eyes bug out of my head and I frantically pull up my text messages. I groan loudly because she wrote exactly what she said she wrote. I glare at her but it only seems to make her smile grow larger. “Oh and she’s got some hot-as-fuck pictures of him on her phone. I sent myself a few so I could show you.”
She holds up her own phone to Winnie, and I watch Winnie’s jaw drop. She grabs Sadie’s phone. “Holy crap, your goalie has one hell of a body, Dix. How can you walk away from that?”
“How can I not?” I counter. With the day I’ve had, I have to admit my job is losing a little bit of its luster. I know that will pass but right now…“I need a drink.”
