Chapter Seven
Emma
Becky made it to my place at about two, after Gretchen and I had finished off the bagels and coffee and had our slasher-movie nap. We’d already cracked the prosecco I’d bought before and made ourselves the first batch of mimosas to pregame into the afternoon before our night out. The way we’d figured it when we’d been planning, we were going to drink during the afternoon, get an Uber or Lyft to go out to a bar, and continue the party there.
Gretchen was still in the middle of trying on my clothes for her date when Becky arrived. “What’s going on? Are we playing dress-up like teenagers?”
I laughed and poured her a mimosa to “catch up” with Gretchen and me. “No, Gretchen is selling us out and going out on a date with David,” I said, rolling my eyes. I was still a little irritable about Gretchen bailing, but I’d let her take a shower, and I’d agreed to let her borrow an outfit from me for her date, so she wouldn’t have to go home early.
“Gretchen!” Becky shook her head, wagging her finger at our mutual friend.
“But it’s David,” Gretchen protested. “You know how long I’ve been after him, and if I don’t go out with him tonight, I just know he’s going to end up meeting some floozy at a bar somewhere and there goes my chance to go out with him at all.”
“If your dream man would end up seriously dating someone he met at a bar on Valentine’s Day, instead of a girl he’s known is interested in him for months, then he’s kind of a shit dream man,” I pointed out.
“Well, what about your dream man? You had a chance with him,” Gretchen countered. “Just because you’re too much of a coward doesn’t mean I should be.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I stared at her in confusion.
“The guy from the book!”
“The guy from the book?” Becky looked at me in confusion.
“Stefan?” I shook my head. “No way.”
“So, explain this whole situation to me again,” Becky said.
I’d told her about it in text messages the day before, but it was easier to go over it in person, while Gretchen changed out of the outfit she’d already tried on and chose another one from my closet.
“Okay,” I said. I got up and found where I’d left the book on the coffee table in the living room and brought it over to where Becky sat. “This is the guy I met,” I said, pointing to the figure of Stefan, his back showing, on the cover.
“I think you’ve been working too hard,” Becky said sarcastically.
“Not the character, not even who I might think the character was based on,” I said. “The guy who posed for this picture.”
“And he was an ass?”
“He was the cocky kind of ass who just sort of knows he’s hot and doesn’t care,” I replied.
“You know, I really think you should have taken him up on the offer,” Gretchen said, coming out of my bedroom.
“No way,” I said, shaking my head.
“Well, which one of us has a date for Valentine’s? And who doesn’t?” Gretchen raised an eyebrow at me. She did a quick twirl in my dress and smoothed it down over her body. “I’ll take this one. I promise I won’t let David rip it off of me,” she said, giving me a little wicked grin.
“Well, Becky isn’t letting me down,” I told her tartly.
“Actually, she is,” Becky said, grimacing.
“What?” I turned to stare at my other best friend.
“Liam has a whole thing planned,” Becky said apologetically. “I was going to tell you about it last night but…”
“But you thought it would be easier for me to take a few hours before we were supposed to go out?” I scowled at her. Both of my friends were abandoning our plan to spend Valentine’s Day together. I knew that Becky was seeing Liam, but they hadn’t even remotely been serious.
“Liam wants to take things to the next level,” Becky said, cringing slightly. She knew I was pissed. “I know, I know, but can you please just at least be happy for me?”
I sighed and closed my eyes. I wasn’t drunk, but I’d had enough mimosas to feel impulsive. I definitely wanted to kick both Gretchen and Becky out of my apartment and tell them that if they liked the men in their lives so much they could just take them for manicures, and have ladies’ night with them, and ask them to bring them donuts and coffee on the first days of their periods.
“I’m pissed, I’m not going to lie,” I said. “I feel really pretty damn betrayed right now.”
“It’s not like you didn’t have an opportunity to go out with someone on Valentine’s,” Gretchen said, emerging from my bedroom with a pair of my shoes on her feet. I was tempted to tell her to go out with David in the clothes from the night before, see how much he liked her then. But that would have been petty, and I knew it.
“I had the opportunity, and I turned it down,” I countered. “Because this was important to me.”
“It was important to us, too,” Becky said.
“But obviously not important enough to actually stick to plans you’d already made,” I pointed out. “Just... you know what? Just go. If you’re going to be ditching me tonight, you might as well be ditching me right away, anyway.” It was sulky, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. My two best friends were leaving me all alone on Valentine’s Day, and not only that, but they were ditching me for guys—ditching plans we’d made a month before.
Gretchen and Becky cleared up the glasses from their mimosas, and I could tell they were both trying to come up with some way to cheer me up, or get me to stop being mad at them, but I wasn’t ready to be there yet. Tomorrow, maybe even the next day, I would be ready to forgive them, but in that moment, I was just angry that my friends were putting guys who weren’t even properly their boyfriends ahead of me.
They said their goodbyes, and I left the table to throw myself on the couch, feeling thoroughly sorry for myself. I muttered to myself about needing to find new friends, and how I would just start hanging out with Sabrina and Ginger more, even if Ginger was a bit older than me. I’d let Becky and Gretchen know how it felt to be ditched, and then they’d be sorry. Especially when their boyfriends ended up dumping them, and they had to get through it on their own.
“God, you’re being petty,” I muttered to myself. For all I knew, David and Liam would turn out to be “the one” for each of my friends, and they’d have beautiful memories about their first Valentine’s Days with them. I pictured myself in a gaudy bridesmaid dress, walking down the aisle with some faceless friend of Liam’s or David’s, since I wouldn’t have a boyfriend of my own by then and felt even bleaker.
“No more alcohol,” I told myself. “You’re just going to get yourself into an even worse mood if you keep drinking.” I sighed and flipped through the channels on the TV for a few moments. Bast came to comfort me in my loneliness, purring as she curled up just under my breasts and kneading at my upper abdomen.
I heard my phone ping, announcing a text message, and Bast hopped off me with an indignant mew, skittering across the living room to her cat-tree. I got up and padded over to where I’d left my phone plugged in; maybe it was Gretchen or Becky, deciding they felt so badly about ditching me that they’d canceled their plans.
Instead, the text message was from Ginger. Hey, sweetie! Why don’t you and your friends come down to Giordano’s? Sabrina got asked out by one of her deliveries yesterday, and I’m going to make sure that she isn’t meeting an axe murderer. I snorted, shaking my head at that. But it was actually pretty tempting—right on cue, in fact. The answer to my problem of a lonely Valentine’s night in.
Isn’t three already kind of a crowd? I wasn’t sure what Ginger meant by going to Sabrina’s date, and I thought again about Stefan. Well, I’d made a different choice from Sabrina’s, but that was her business. Maybe the guy she’d met during her deliveries the day before had actually been charming and nice.
Oh, no! Nora is coming, too, Ginger replied. We’re both going, and we’ll hang back once she meets with the guy, just to make sure everything’s good. Besides, we both decided we deserve a night out after making it through Valentine’s. That was a good point, and even though I hadn’t worked that day I figured I deserved a night out as much as anyone else. After all, I’d been going in early and leaving late all the week leading into Valentine’s Day.
When are you all going? If it was a date, I figured it would be dinner, and it was only about four-thirty.
He wants to meet her at seven-thirty, so Nora and I plan to get there at seven, Ginger sent back in a text. I saw the pending symbol, then another message came through. Sabrina’s going to get there just before seven-thirty, and you could come then, too. We can talk about whoever it is she’s meeting.
I thought about it. I had to admit, part of me wanted to wallow in self-pity a bit. But I knew it wouldn’t make me feel any better about Gretchen and Becky. I might just as well go out as stay in, and I might even have a good time. I’ll come! I tottered a bit from the mimosas I’d had and decided that I would take a nap first.
If nothing else, I thought as I confirmed with Ginger where and when, I would be able to enjoy watching the excitement unfold. Ginger explained that Sabrina didn’t even remember who the guy was, but she’d been intrigued enough to go along with his plan, just for the sake of a fun story. I laughed along with Ginger and finished up the conversation as quickly as I could, so that I would have enough time to nap and get ready to go out.
Bast didn’t understand why I curled up in my bed, but she was definitely happy to curl up with me, and I set my alarm for an hour and a half. I wanted enough time to get a quick shower and put on some makeup. I might have had the dubious distinction of being single on Valentine’s Day, but I would go out looking my best, that much I knew.