Her Last Wild Ride

She snorted. “Nice try, Ash. The tall, lean drink of water who just walked out of here.” She leaned forward and said lasciviously, “I’d like a drink of that.”

I scowled. “Don’t know. Never seen him before. He was rude.”

Jenna sighed. “He can be rude with me anytime. Seriously, those eyes. I mean, did you see those eyes? And those arms?”

Yes I had, and I could imagine them all too well right now, eyes and arms and broad shoulders. I was annoyed that he’d apparently had the same effect on Jenna. Under her narrow-eyed look, I forced myself to smile. “We’re nearly closing up... Want to wait and I’ll have a drink with you?”

She nodded, her green-eyed gaze far too assessing. “Sure. Give me a beer while I’m waiting.”

About half an hour later I was locking up behind the last customer, and as I came back to Jenna, she swiveled around on the stool and grinned. I took her cue. “Cosmos? For old times’ sake?” We were still celebrating my return to New York after fifteen years in LA.

Her grin got wider. “Line ’em up, baby.”

We’d both been obsessed with Sex and the City in our teens and had loved Samantha the most, rewinding her many sex scenes, and pausing to ask, “Wow, do you think we’ll ever have sex like that?”

We were sisters from another mother: best friends since the moment in kindergarten when Noah Goldberg had said Jenna’s hair looked like dirty, squiggly carrots and I’d kicked sand in his face in her defense. We were both the younger sisters of annoyingly protective older brothers, and both from staunchly Irish-American backgrounds. Although mine was a little more diluted on my mother’s side.

We’d suffered together under the tutelage of the nuns and used to spend most of our time separated for bad behavior. And we’d both been through the acrimonious divorce of our parents within years of each other.

Except where Jenna’s folks had stayed just blocks away from each other in New York, my mom had moved to LA and taken me with her, leaving my older brother behind, so I’d only ever come home for the holidays.

As I mixed the cocktails, Jenna said carefully, “So, how are you doing?”

I smiled brightly. “Great! As long as you’re not referring to a lying, cheating bastard by the name of Steve.”

Jenna winced and looked at me with sympathy. “You had no idea, sweetie. How could you? He was from New Zealand! How would you have ever found out that he had a wife and baby if they hadn’t come to surprise him on the last day of the movie?”

“I can’t believe I let him move in with me.” Even now my skin crawled to think of it. I’d never even usually let a guy sleep over. The betrayal and humiliation was still painful. After a lifetime of trusting my instincts not to let guys get too close, my defenses had come crashing down spectacularly. And all because Steve the Rat had seen me as a challenge because I wasn’t giving in as easily as every other girl.

It had been a red rag to a bull for a man who refused to take no for an answer. His single-minded seduction had taken me off guard, and it was still galling that his zeal had had more to do with his ego than any great passion for me. The fact that his family hadn’t been on the same continent had given him plenty of room to maneuver.

Film shoots were notorious hotbeds of extramarital affairs, but I never thought I’d get caught like that. Considering my own scars from being the product of a broken home, the fact that I might have contributed to someone else’s misery, even unwittingly, was excruciating.

“Look,” Jenna said stoutly. “He was a gorgeous stunt guy with a cute Kiwi accent, and your job was to draw freaking tattoos on his practically naked body every day.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d have to have been Mother Attracta to avoid that kind of temptation, and even she probably would have gone down on him.”

The thought of the very strict Mother Superior of our primary school getting on her knees to give a blow job made me convulse inelegantly. Thank God for Jenna; she could always made me laugh. When I got myself under control again, I put the cosmos on the bar counter and came around to perch on a stool beside her. She picked hers up. “Here’s to giving up men to concentrate on us and our fabulous new business, and your homecoming!”

“Amen!” I said with feeling. Jenna had just been through a pretty brutal breakup of her own, demonstrating once again how our lives always seemed to freakishly sync up. We clinked glasses and took a gulp of the bright pink concoctions.

A sense of lightness and excitement gripped me. I was so happy to be home, much happier than I’d ever thought I might be. And even happier to be leaving the frenetic pace of working on films behind me. The long hours and insecure freelance nature of the job had taken its toll. Not to mention my recent crappy dating experience.

I pushed down the lingering bitterness and looked at her. “So, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

She nodded, making her abundance of curly red hair bounce around her shoulders. “Abso-fricking-lutely.”

Nerves mixed with anticipation gripped me. We were setting up a joint business venture, a company called MacSullivan Inc. Jenna was a stylist, and together we were going to provide an all-in-one service for the hair/makeup/styling end of things for commercials, photo shoots and videos. Normally a production company called any number of freelancers to fill those roles, but we were going to be a one-stop shop and make a name for ourselves as the go-to girls everyone needed on their shoots.

We already had another old friend lined up who could do hair. The plan was to do it ourselves for the first few years, get it off the ground and then train up newbies so that they could take over. Eventually we’d hopefully have built up something of an agency with a byword in excellence. It also helped that one of my specialties from working on films was prosthetics, so we’d be able to do quirky stuff, too. I was also planning on teaching some workshops.

Ever since I’d gone to LA with my mother, I’d felt a little out of control of my own life, which had manifested as severe teenage rebellion. And even though I’d had a great career, it still felt as if I’d never really made the choice, because I’d been all but forced into an internship in the movie industry by my mother in a bid to keep me out of trouble.

But for the first time now, with this venture, I was taking control of my life. And it felt good.

Jenna turned businesslike. “Okay, so I’m going to Miami tomorrow for two weeks for the big family reunion for my nana’s eightieth birthday. Will you be working here?”

I sipped my cosmo and nodded. “Liam and Caitlin left for Mexico today.” My older brother had run the family business since our father had checked out in spectacular alcoholic style some years ago. I was happy to help out and find my feet after returning from LA, and make some money before throwing all my energy and savings into this new business venture with Jenna.

She said now with wide eyes, “I still can’t believe Liam is actually in love.”