Rush Me (New York Leopards 1)

Fine. I had Bri to sort out, anyway.

The restaurant employees were pleased to finally have a female to deal with the hysterical woman in their bathroom. Apparently, she had been scaring the other customers, which was not a phrase I would ever have thought to apply to Briana Harris. I pushed open the bathroom door and found her sitting on the floor of the tiny antechamber, knees tugged up, head down.

“Bri? What’s wrong?”

She looked up, her dark lashes spiky with unshed tears, her warm eyes gleaming with them. “Malcolm asked me to marry him.”

“Congratulations,” I said automatically. Maybe they were tears of joy?

She shook her head. “I said no.”

Completely taken aback, I dropped into the chair next to her. “How come?”

She exploded, jerking upright, her hands waving out. “I don’t know! Because we’re not right for each other!” A drop wobbled out through her bottom lashes, and she whisked it away with the back of her hand. “He started going on and on about how he loves me, and he wants to have a family with me, and he can just see our perfect little children—and I don’t even want children!”

“Oh.” This seemed like the kind of thing serious couples ought to discuss before proposals. “Did he know that?”

“Oh, yes. Sort of. Maybe not entirely.” Her vehemence drained a little with each word. “It’s just that his family is so kid-oriented. And Malcolm would be such a good dad, you can tell. He loves kids. And I like them. Sort of. But I think I was born without the maternal gene!

“And I still have three years before I finish my doctorate! And then—then I want to live in Paris, and I want to see Africa, and Malcolm just wants to play football and then live in Kentucky. Kentucky! Oh my God! People have Confederate flags in Kentucky! Racist bastards.”

I grabbed her hands, and she clung to mine as though to a lifeline. “Okay.” I had no idea how to deal with this. I was used to Briana acting cool, not breaking down in a bathroom stall. “Well—do you love him?”

“Yes!” she wailed. “But so what? That doesn’t guarantee a happily ever after!”

I wished it did.

She pushed to her feet, pulling me up by our locked hands. “I have to get out of here.” She looked around wildly as though a door to Narnia would appear.

“Okay. Do you want to...go get a drink?”

“No. No, I want to get out of this state. Because any minute, Malcolm’s going to come back, and he’s going to have, oh, logical things to say, and he’ll talk about love, and I’ll crack, and I just can’t deal with that anymore. I have to think.”

“Then we’ll get out of here. Where do you want to go?”

She looked even more depressed. “Nowhere. Everyone adores Malcolm. No one would understand. I don’t even want to be around people.”

Well, we could always head to Maine for utter desolation, but that might be a little tricky. “My friend has a place in Rhinebeck. We could take the train.”

She lit up with sudden, desperate hope.

Half an hour later, we were backing out of Penn Station, headed upstate. Neither of us had packed, because Bri didn’t want to risk slowing down. It was just us and several sushi trays from the station. We’d gone vegetarian; neither of us dared trust actual fish would be safe.

“Did Malcolm ever tell you how we met?” Bri asked, staring out the window. The Hudson River rushed by, a wide, dark expanse under the deepening navy sky. I shook my head, my ghost-like reflection mimicking the movement.

“We were in Santa Barbara. It’s gorgeous. All palm trees and beaches and Spanish architecture. We were there during a festival for Spanish heritage. Street vendors sold these painted eggs filled with confetti that everyone cracked on each other’s heads for good luck. My friend Jess and I were visiting for the weekend, joking around, and I tried to hit her with an egg and she ran away, and I ended up hitting Malcolm instead. Pink and yellow and blue confetti burst all over him. He just stood there, shocked.” She stopped, and sighed. “The ring box was filled with confetti.”

Silent and morose, we watched the river and blurring trees. I wondered how much of this came from nerves, and how much from relationship problems. If she loved him, shouldn’t they be able to make this work? I’d never seen such a well-matched couple.

“You and Ryan are perfect for each other.”

The odd parallel to my own thoughts jolted me into a firm shake of my head. “No, we’re not.” Not like Bri and Malcolm.

She looked up sharply. “What are you talking about? Of course you are.”

I didn’t want to add my problems to hers, so I just shrugged lightly. “We fight too much.”

She waved it away. “Everyone fights. You’ll get over it.”