Fighting for My Best Friend (Fated #4) (6 page)

It would’ve been too expensive to take a cab home and too
embarrassing to call Fiona and tell her to come get me. Plus, she was probably drunk,
and I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to make any moves.

What I really needed was some time on my own to clear my head.

Of course, that would have to wait since there was a bottle of
bubbly in my room just for me. Nice touch, Mr. Briggs.

I unwrapped the foil and loosened the wire cage, holding the top
down as hard as I could, terrified that if I wasn’t careful I would break a
mirror or something. And not only could I not afford seven years of bad luck
right now, but I would be homeless by the time I replaced what I broke.

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned the cork slowly, hoping I
wasn’t doing it all wrong. When the cork finally released, it made a muted
popping sound and fizzed all over the table. Fortunately, I only lost about a
quarter of the bottle.

I went to the bathroom and got a towel to clean up the mess. While
I was mopping up the champagne, I caught my reflection in the mirror.

What the fuck was I doing here?

I shouldn’t be in my room already. This was a wedding. People
would think I was hammered. Or maybe they wouldn’t because no one gave a damn
that I was here.

I stood back and looked at myself, standing alone in the dimly
lit room in my yellow dress. I knew what I was doing here. The problem was that
I only realized it now.

I was here to do Claire’s hair and be a low maintenance date for
Aiden. End of story.

I shook my head.

What a joke. Why would I think I wasn’t like all his other
conquests? Because I knew him longer? As soon as I spread my legs for him, I
was no different than all the other girls.

I hoped I was different, that his feelings for me were something
he felt somewhere besides his dick. But that was incredibly naïve, and all I
did by sleeping with him was make things awkward between us.

And for what? One night of passion? It wasn’t worth it. As good
as it was, I missed my friend and what we had before, especially now that I
knew sleeping with him hadn’t changed things for the better.

It killed me that I didn’t hear his whole conversation with
Chelsea. The only good thing about it was that I had the wherewithal to back
away from the door so I wouldn’t be trembling outside with cocked ears when
they came out.

God that would’ve been embarrassing.

But what the hell was with her line of questioning about the underwear
she found at his place? Why had she even been there? And why had my underwear- if
they even were mine- been left lying around where anyone might come across them?

Of course, the thought of Chelsea finding my underwear was
nothing compared to how sick I felt thinking he’d been with other girls since
we’d been together. I shuddered to think that his hands- his tongue- could’ve
seduced someone else the way they seduced me.

But of course they could’ve.

It was so easy for him to get me. Sure, I thought I was being
coy, playing hard to get. But I wasn’t. Aiden was no stranger to women, and as
soon as he saw me as one, he knew just how to play me.

And now I was just one of dozens of girls who had stupidly fled
his apartment and forgotten their underwear. He probably had drawers and
drawers of it.

It was ridiculous to imagine that one night with me could change
everything, that I could just lay there and it would be enough to make him want
me again.

Of course, he had wanted me at one point. How could I forget? That
night after work when we got ice cream he’d invited me back to his place for
round two. Maybe I blew it by choosing Fiona over him. Maybe the fact that I
wasn’t up for it, that I wasn’t gagging for it as much as he was, made him lose
interest.

Except I was up for it.

Every night I was going to sleep, thinking about his hands, his
tongue, his breath on me. I longed to see his body respond to me again the way
it had that night, to have him look at me that way.

Like I was beautiful. Like he wanted me.

For fifteen years, he’d looked at me through his gorgeous eyes,
and it wasn’t until that night that I saw desire behind them. That look alone
was enough to make my body ache.

But how many other bodies had quaked beneath him since then? I
thought of all those nights when I was riddled with stress that he was mad at
me. But he wasn’t mad. He was just busy.

And I drove him into the arms of those other girls by letting
him down.

I must’ve been the only girl on Earth who thought sleeping with
Aiden Briggs was a mistake.

I poured the champagne into one of two glasses on the table and
picked it up. I thought about knocking it back, but instead I just sipped it,
my thirst for drink exhausted.

I walked to the head of the bed and sat down, slipping my feet
out of my shoes and setting my champagne down on the side table. Then I laid
down, sinking into the thick white comforter and folding my hands across my
stomach.

Could I ask him? If there had been other girls since me? Not how
many but just if. Would that make me look crazy? Possessive?

I mean, I had no right to be either. But it sure would help me
out.

Not only would it explain whether Chelsea had gotten her hands
on my underwear, but more importantly, it would let me know whether my hoping
for something more was in vain.

After all, if he’d been having casual sex with Tinder hook ups
since that night then… then I was crazy. Or at least, crazy about him in a way
that he obviously wasn’t about me. Because after that night, I swear he had me.

I hadn’t even noticed another man since that night. Even the
random attractive body parts of other guys reminded me of his hands or his hair
or his back… After the way he made me feel- so alive, so awake- I didn’t want
anybody else.

But maybe he had a totally different experience. Maybe after
that night he woke up and wasn’t changed at all. Maybe he just called me,
flirted with me until I was red in the face for sport, and then went about his
day noticing the hips and lips and thighs of other women without me being
called to mind.

Maybe this whole time I’d been looking at him like he was a goal
post when to him, I was just another notch on his bed post.

I sighed.

I could deal with that, but only if we restored our marred friendship
and put the sex behind us. Then I would be able to move on… eventually. Or at
least I had to believe that or I was going to start pulling my hair out.

But what I couldn’t deal with was that it sounded like he was
actually ashamed of the fact that he slept with me. Otherwise, why be so
adamant about the fact that we weren’t together?

“
I’m not with her,”
he said. “
She’s just a friend of
the family’s.”

I closed my eyes, determined to sink right through the blankets.

I needed to accept reality, no matter how much I wanted it to be
different.

Because the bottom line was that when he was asked behind closed
doors why I was here, he’d gone with I had to bring
someone
.

Which made me feel like no one.

I circled the perimeter of the ballroom three times and didn’t see
her anywhere.

And there was no way I could’ve missed her in that yellow dress.

I checked outside the hotel and the smoking area, even though I
hadn’t seen her smoke since high school when she hung out with the theatre
crowd for a while.

I even loitered outside the women’s bathroom, cracking the door
open and calling her name.

Nothing. She was nowhere, and she wasn’t answering her phone.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lucy Ryan has left the building. And
that’s when it hit me. She couldn’t have left. I was her ride. She was still
around somewhere. Which was worrying.

Sometimes when she had too much to drink, she just disappeared.
She always found this to be a strength of hers, the fact that she would cop on
to her drunkenness and leave before she made a scene. Unfortunately, this drove
me crazy more than I could say because she never gave me warning when she did
it.

Plus, it was dangerous. When we were in high school, it was fine
to look for an empty bed and “take a nap” as she used to call passing the fuck
out. But when we were in college, it used to cause me so much stress. One time
I even broke a door down looking for her and ended up looking like a lunatic
because she’d just gone on a beer run with some people.

Regardless, I knew I couldn’t check every room in the hotel.
Still, she seemed alright when I left her, and the fact that she knew one of
the beds had her name on it gave me confidence.

“Hello, sir,” the man at reception said as I approached.

“Hi,” I said, glancing at his name tag. “Barry.”

“How may I help you?”

“I need the room number for one of your guests.”

“I’m afraid I can’t give out that information.”

“It’s fine. She’s a friend.”

“I apologize, sir. Our guests appreciate the lengths we go to in
order to insure their privacy.”

“It’s an emergency,” I said.

“If you give me the name, I can connect you by telephone.”

I clenched my jaw. “Lucy Ryan.”

The pinch faced clerk punched some buttons on the phone. I tried
to catch the number he dialed but the angle of his fingers made it hard to
tell. He held the receiver to his ear until it began to ring. Then he handed it
to me.

I waited and waited. With every ring my heart sank in my chest.
Damn it, Lucy! Answer the fucking phone!

The clerk kept his eyes on the monitor to his right, pounding
the keys too hard in between dramatic pauses like he was checking me in for a
transatlantic flight.

I held the phone back across the desk.

“No answer?” he asked. “Would you like to try one more time?”

“No,” I said. “I would like to go check on my date like a normal
person.”

“I’m afraid I can’t-”

I pointed across the main hall towards the room where the
reception was being held. “You know the Briggs-Thompson wedding going on down
the hall?”

“Yes.”

“The one that’s responsible for four hundred of your rooms being
booked this weekend?”

“Yes.”

“Well my name is Aiden Briggs and my Dad booked those rooms.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I’d hate to interrupt him right now because you won’t let
me go make sure my date isn’t unwell.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is your privacy policy really more important than me going to
make sure she’s not dead up there?”

Barry’s face dropped.

I was two seconds away from reaching in my pocket and handing
the weasel a hundred bucks to squeal.

“415.”

I felt disgusted having to use my Dad’s clout to get what I
wanted, but when it came to finding Lucy in a hurry, there was nothing I
wouldn’t do.

Moments later, I was pacing in the elevator like a caged animal.
When the door opened, I turned the corner so fast I nearly knocked into an old
lady whose hip would’ve shattered if she’d hit the floor.

Fortunately, I was able to keep her from falling. Then I stuck
around to make sure she caught the elevator safely, which was good because it
gave me a second to calm down before I found the hallway leading to Lucy’s
room.

I knocked on the door when I arrived. When there was no answer,
I knocked again much louder.

“Lucy, open up. It’s me.” I banged again.

Then I heard the chain being unhooked and saw the door handle
point down to the floor.

She opened the door and looked at me.

It was obvious from her face that she’d been resting and when I
saw how fragile she looked in the dim light, I felt the volume of my voice
decrease exponentially. “What are you doing up here?”

She tilted her head. “This is my room,” she said. “What are you
doing up here?”

“Looking for you, obviously.”

She put her bare arm out to the side and flared her fingers.
“Well, you found me.”

“Can I come in?”

She took a step back, taking the door with her.

I stepped inside. There was a bottle of champagne half empty on
the table and the sheer curtains were drawn so the room was dim with soft
evening light.

“You having your own party up here?” I asked.

She shrugged.

I looked from the dent her body had made in the bedspread to her
slightly disheveled hair. She looked hot as hell in her lazy state.

“I just needed a break,” she said.

“A break from answering your phone?” I asked, sitting on the end
of the bed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I think I fell asleep for a few minutes.”

“Let’s just hope my Dad isn’t doing the same thing in the middle
of the dance floor.”

“I thought he could do anything he wants on this, the day of his
daughter’s wedding?”

Her Godfather impression was bad when she wasn’t tipsy, but this
attempt was a joke. “It’s that you have to grant any request,” I said. “Not
that you can do what you want.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s both.”

“Maybe,” I said, admiring the way the yellow dress hung off her
hips.

“Champagne?” she asked.

“That would be great,” I said. “God forbid I sober up.”

She smiled and filled the empty glass.

I took it. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” she said, walking over to grab her own glass off the
night table. “Is Chelsea okay?”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay in the head or okay as in gone?”

She sat next to me on the bed. “Both.”

“I’m settling for the latter.”

She nodded. “I guess she took the break up pretty hard, huh?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think she just wanted to
make sure I was taking it hard.” I took a sip of champagne.

“And are you?”

“What?”

“Taking it hard?”

I turned to look at her. “No. Are you kidding? Breaking up with
her is the second best thing I’ve done in a long time.”

Her dark eyes searched mine. “Second best?”

I nodded.

“What’s the first-”

I put my hand on her bare knee.

She swallowed.

“Are you okay? Really?”

She nodded.

“I know my family is a handful and there are a lot of people
here.”

“Yeah.”

“And I owe you an apology for being such a shitty date.”

“You haven’t been a shitty date.”

“Yes I have.”

She sighed.

“I was a dick to you when I picked you up.”

She pursed her lips.

“Then I was punishing you for the fact that my ex girlfriend
was- is- a deceitful monster.”

She took a sip of her champagne.

“I’ve done nothing but ignore you all day.”

“You had a lot of responsibilities today. I know it wasn’t
personal.”

“It’s not good enough,” I said. “You deserve better.”

Her hair fell to the side so I could see the curve of her
shoulders and the length of her smooth neck. “And then I left you by yourself
so I could deal with Chelsea. I don’t know why. I guess I was just-”

“Trying to avoid a scene?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But there’s nothing I needed to say to her that
I couldn’t have said in front of you.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. Then she crossed her legs
away from me, and my hand fell from her knee.