Four Letter Word

And just like that, my disappointment vanished.

He’d be up, waiting to talk to me. Wanting to talk to me. That felt better than two going on three lemon drops, and those felt good.

OK.

Get a cab.

We’re calling an Uber.

Good.

Glad you approve.

You being smart?

I’m being WILD.

I typed this smiling so big my cheeks hurt.

Right. Be Wild and call an Uber.

I giggled and looked up just as Tori was walking back over with Kali, both of them laughing about something while Tori carried a tray like I’d seen her do a million times at work, kept close and perched beside her shoulder and doing it with ease, this one covered in drinks ranging in size from the four lemon drop martinis to tiny shot glasses filled with different-colored liquids.

I was confused as to why she was carrying it. I was also confused as to why it was covered in shot glasses when I thought we were sticking with lemon drop martinis tonight.

She slid it onto the table and wasted no time explaining herself.

“That guy in the suit over there wanted to buy us drinks because apparently we look like a bunch of women who can’t buy our own drinks and needed his big manly wallet to come and save us,” she started, doing this while distributing a martini glass and a shot in front of everyone. “So I decided to buy us a shit load of drinks to show him none of us need a man to buy us anything, and I did this while also explaining to him that this is girls’ night and on girls’ night we buy our own drinks.”

She lifted her shot and turned her head.

The three of us followed, Shay even spinning around to look, and saw the guy in the suit staring at us with wide eyes like he’d just been told to go fuck himself.

I wouldn’t have put it past Tori to deliver that message.

“To girls’ night!” Tori cheered.

We all toasted to girls’ night before shooting it back, and we did it loud.

* * *

“Oh, my gosh. Where is this guy? My feet are killing me!”

Kali stopped walking on the sidewalk and held on to the lamppost, tugged off her heels with a groan, then continued the trek down York Street barefoot with her heels in one hand and her clutch in another.

We’d left the bar ten minutes ago after calling Uber twenty minutes before that, expecting to see our ride waiting by the curb since that’s where he said he’d be.

He wasn’t. Apparently the man who drives for a living got lost.

So now we were walking down the block a little ways in hopes of spotting him so we could all get home, which I was dying to do since I knew Brian would be waiting up for me and I couldn’t wait to talk to him more about anything and everything.

I loved our conversations. And now I knew he missed them when we weren’t having them.

The flip and twist was happening constantly as I thought about that.

“Maybe you should call him again,” Shay suggested beside me, giggling and dropping her head on my arm.

She was completely loaded. I was pretty certain we were all some level of drunk, but Shay was definitely leading the way with the most shots thrown back.

I felt great. Warm and a little numb all over. I wanted to lie on the sidewalk and gaze at the stars.

“He might be in front of one of these other bars and be waiting for us, like an idiot,” Kali pointed out, bringing us to a halt in front of a nameless bar I couldn’t focus on because the neon lights were too bright for me at the moment.

I squinted away and watched Tori slip out her phone and study it for a minute before dialing.

“Yeah, it’s me again. Where are you?” she clipped into the device, looking down the street and across it while she spoke.

“Are you kidding me? When? We stood out there for ten minutes waiting for you!”

I dropped my head back with a sigh.

“I’m drunk. I can’t track your location on a map! And you were supposed to text me when you arrived!”

“I really hate to pump and dump,” Kali admitted quietly, grabbing my attention and pulling my ears off Tori’s conversation. She bit her lip. “Do you think I’m a horrible mom for going out tonight?”

I shook my head. “No way. You’re so pretty.”

She smiled.

Shay giggled either because of us or something else. The girl was laughing at everything.

“Just head north on York Street and we’ll walk back. You can’t miss us.” Tori ended the call looking irritated as all get-out, then motioned for us to spin around and instructed, “Go back. He’s been waiting for us.”

“Ugh! What a jerk. He was supposed to text!” Shay hissed.

“Men are such idiots with technology,” Kali commented.

I pinched my lips together so I wouldn’t scream at the top of my lungs about Brian being awesome with technology.

It was torture keeping his awesomeness a secret.

We were walking back in the direction of the bar with Tori leading the way when she stopped dead without warning.

Shay and I stumbled a little, bumping into each other since we were the two walking mostly behind her. Kali was off to the side.

“What?” I asked, then moved in front of Tori when she didn’t react to my question, not with a response or even a jerk of her head. “What’s going on?” I pressed further.

I followed her gaze to the parking lot we were standing in front of, and I couldn’t be sure because I was drunk and also because there were a lot of vehicles filling that lot, but it looked like Tori was shooting daggers specifically at a sleek red sports car that was taking up two spaces.