That Hot Night

“We did but we weren’t close. Neither were me and Bo, not until after high school.” I shrugged at Mikki’s shocked look because it wasn’t like I was a social outcast or anything, I was just on the outside of most of the fun, capturing it for posterity. “I mean look at Rafe. He was hot and popular and kind of wild, we didn’t exactly run in the same circles back then.” But I could admit that he hasn’t been that Rafe in a long time. Now he was respectable, an upstanding member of the community. He’d started as a firefighter and EMT and now he ran the whole fire department. He was no longer the magnetic, troublemaking boy he’d been.

Though thankfully, for my sake, he wasn’t always so respectable, a thought that immediately took me back to dinner a few nights ago. Before I could remind myself where I was and who I was with, I felt the blush heat my cheeks.

“Uh oh,” Bo grinned. “She’s got that look.”

Look. “What look?” I turned to the window that overlooked the dark side of the parking lot to get a look at my face but it was just an outline with all neon signs reflecting back at me. “What look?”

Mikki put a soft hand on top of mine and grinned. “The look of a woman in love.”

Her words could not have shocked me more. I shook my head before I even had time to get my thoughts together because I knew one thing, I was not in love with Rafe Montgomery. “You’re wrong. Sorry but you are. I like him, sure, more than I should even, but it’s not love. It can’t be.” This was just sex. Casual sex with a fun guy. “Never mind that I would never allow myself to fall for a guy who thought a month was long term commitment.”

Bo grunted and rolled her eyes, sharing a look with Mikki, who spoke for them both. “Who says he doesn’t want more?”

Dead wrong, echoed in my head again. “Everything,” I responded with a snort. “His track record is exhibit A.”

“Except,” Bo chimed in with a glint in her eyes, “that he’s spent all his free time for the past few months with you. No one else,” she said proudly and held up a hand. “No trips to Ogden or Dallas, or San Antonio,” she said and lowered her index finger. “No mysterious weekend trips out of town,” she said and dropped another finger. “No lovelorn women showing up in town looking to change his mind.” Another finger lowered. “Just you, Janey. A lot.”

Dang, she made a good point. A really good point. When the new waitress stopped at our table with my nachos, I was thankful for the interruption. “Another of these please and two virgins for the old ladies.”

“And wings and fries,” Bo added with a friendly smile to the newbie.

“And a steak taco platter with extra salsa,” Mikki added with a grateful smile. “Thanks, hon.”

While Mikki and Bo bantered back and forth about my suddenly silent state, my mind reeled. I wasn’t in love with Rafe. I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. Not that I was an expert on the topic, I wasn’t, both times I thought I was in love, it turned out I was in it on my own. But this time I wasn’t quite as sure as I led the girls to believe. I liked Rafe and I thought about him a lot, and not just the sexy times. I wondered what he was doing when he wasn’t around and I often fought the urge to share funny stories with him about my day. But that was infatuation, maybe even a grownup crush. Not love.

“How did you both know you were in love?” The question itself was a dead giveaway but they took pity on me and answered.

“Well I nearly lost my best friend forever and I was a lot more hurt by that than I should have been. In hindsight it was a dead giveaway but in the thick of it?” She shook her head and let out a thoughtful sigh. “I felt like my heart was being ripped out, and that’s how I knew.”

“That sounds…awful.”

Mikki let out a loud laugh, complete with her hand smacking the table until the drinks shook. “Oh lord, doesn’t it though?” With one hand on her chest, she continued to laugh until only the need to breathe stopped her. “For me it was vegan cheese. And breakfast.”

Bo frowned. “Vegan cheese is an abomination.”

“Not for a very pregnant cheese lover,” she shot back. “He cared enough to find a way to give me something I wanted and that let me stop fighting my feelings so hard. Plus a big sexy man cooking breakfast? How could I resist.” Her face took on a dreamy quality that gave me a pang of envy. “Plus I couldn’t’ stop thinking about him. Or the sex. And I wanted to tell him everything, like an elderly woman wanting to buy crotchless panties.” She laughed at the memory and Bo joined in, sharing her own stories.