“Yeah, the Seattle Seahawks,” Andrea said, a tiny smile appearing, her eyes filling with a dreamy haze that Reagan recognized.
She’d worn that dreamy haze herself all weekend long.
Reagan reached over and shoved her friend in the shoulder. “Get the hell out.”
“Well, my hot weekend date was Noah Wilde,” Natalie said casually, examining her fingernails the entire time she said it.
“What?” Andrea shrieked. “Wilde and Wicked used to be, like, my favorite band!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Natalie rolled her eyes. “That was a total one-shot deal, though. We had fun. Lots of fun. But…he’s not serious.”
“Neither is Luke,” Andrea said sadly.
“Neither is Declan,” Reagan added.
They remained quiet for a moment, lamenting their gains…and their losses. Vegas was a gamble, and where people usually came to lose their money, Reagan realized she and her friends all seemed to have lost their hearts.
“You do realize no one will ever, ever believe us in a million years,” Andrea said forlornly. “Not that I want to blab our business to everyone we know, but come on. Look at who we spent our weekend in Vegas with. A famous actor, pro athlete and musician? Who will believe that?”
Right. It sounded completely unbelievable. Because it sort of was. All orchestrated by their very own fairy godfather, James. In fact…
“Has anyone spoken to James lately?” Reagan asked, whipping out her phone so she could send him a text. But what would she say?
Thanks for hooking me up with the sexiest man alive. We had the best sex ever!
Yeah. That would be kind of weird.
In the end, all three of them sent him separate thank you texts, figuring they at least needed to give credit where credit was due. And one by one, he sent them each a text in return, and attached to the texts, photos, all of them candid, not one of the women aware that James had even taken the pictures.
There was one of Andrea and Luke in a secluded corner at Friday night’s party, his hand on her barely covered butt, their gazes locked on each other and no one else. But you could definitely recognize Luke—and recognize the star struck expression on Andrea’s face.
Natalie and Noah Wilde were laughing as they stood facing each other, drinks in hand and looking as if they were having the time of their lives. Reagan had never seen her friend so happy, so alive. Noah was sexy in that magnetic, rock-and-roll style that had all the women going crazy over him.
And the one of Reagan and Declan…it sent a wistful yearning knotted in her stomach. She realized immediately when the photo was taken. They’d just come back inside from the patio, walking together, Declan’s hand on her lower back as he glanced down at her. She looked in a daze and he looked…love struck?
The lump in her throat was hard to swallow past, but she managed.
“Proof,” Natalie said, staring at the photo on her phone as if she couldn’t quite believe that was her standing next to Noah Wilde.
Reagan could relate.
“Yes. He sent us proof,” Andrea agreed, bringing her phone up to her chest so she could literally clutch it. She closed her eyes and sighed, the phone still close to her heart. Any other time, Reagan would’ve made fun of her, but not now. Not when she felt like doing the exact same thing. “This was the best weekend of my life.”
“Mine too,” Natalie and Reagan said together.
“No regrets?” Andrea opened her eyes and stared at her friends, imploring them with her gaze.
“No regrets,” Reagan murmured, staring at her phone, tracing Declan’s profile with the very edge of her fingernail.
Absolutely, one-hundred percent, no regrets.
Chapter Eight
Five weeks later
Reagan rubbed her hand across her forehead, pushing back the straying tendrils of hair with a sigh of frustration. She was exhausted at the end of her unusually long seventeen-hour shift at the hospital. It was a full moon, meaning all the freaks were out at night…literally.
She’d seen more than her fair share of people involved with criminal activity coming in for treatment of stab wounds, gunshot wounds. One man had a slit down his cheek from the ring his opponent had worn when they’d engaged in a fistfight. His girlfriend’s ring—as in his beloved socked him in the eye but missed, cutting open his cheek instead.