* * *
Five hours later, I sat in the sun by the pool at my friend, Zara’s, house. Today was her annual Christmas pool party and it was exactly what I needed.
Sun, warmth, friends and cocktails.
“It’s a man, right?” Zara said as she passed me a margarita.
“Am I that obvious?” I took a long sip and smiled at the familiar taste. Tequila and me were old friends.
Tania, who lay on the sun lounger next to me, laughed. “Your heartbreak is bleeding all over you, babe. Spill.”
“Ugh. It’s not heartbreak – I hardly know the guy for it to be heartbreak. It’s just my stupidity making me feel like an idiot.”
Zara’s eyes widened. “You broke your one-night-stand rule, didn’t you?” She settled next to me and stared, waiting for my reply.
Nodding, I confessed, “Yeah, I did. And the stupid part of all this was that he made it crystal clear he only wanted one night, so it’s my fault that I’m disappointed.”
“You also broke rule number one in the women’s handbook, didn’t you?” Tania said.
“What rule is that?” I asked as I drank more of my drink. Besides my one-night-stand rule, I wasn’t really a rules-following kind of girl.
She sighed. “I really need to teach you more stuff. Rule number one is that you can’t change a man. He might come around, but you can’t change who he is at his core. Any change has to come from him. And remember, once a stubborn ass, always a stubborn ass. Same as, once a lying douche, always a lying douche.”
I laughed. “What’s the second rule in this handbook?”
“Men are a lot of hard fucking work. Only tread where you’re willing to put the work in.” She raised her glass at me and grinned. “You’re welcome for that information, by the way. Us girls have gotta stick together and look out for each other.” She took a huge gulp of her margarita and then added with a wink, “Let’s get drunk today; I need to get drunk so I can forget your heartbreak.”
Laughing again, I said, “You’d use any excuse for a drink, but I’m down. Let’s drink!”
“Wait,” said Zara. “At least tell us the sex was awesome. There’s gotta be one good thing from all this, right?”
My core lit up just thinking about how good the sex had been. “Best sex I’ve ever had.”
“Thank goodness for that! At least the man gave you some good memories you can call on in lonely times.” Zara winked at me as she said this. She was right – I would definitely use Griff for inspiration when I had to rely on BOB.
One of the other party guests bomb dived into the pool at that moment, distracting us from our conversation, and completely covering us in water. As Tania and Zara grumbled about being wet, I jumped up and dived into the pool. If you couldn’t beat them, join them.
“Come on!” I motioned to the girls. “It’s beautiful in the water.” The heat of the day was forgotten as I did a lap of the pool.
Zara and Tania eventually joined me, and we got a game of water volleyball going. One way or another, I would put Griff out of my mind today.
12
Griff
As I stared out at the tree in my backyard where my family’s ashes were buried, the brutal humidity clung to me, but I hardly noticed it as memories of my father filled my mind. These memories were the reason why I only allowed myself to think about him once a year. My father had been a hard man. A man with his own demons; a man who struggled with how to cope with those demons. And in the end, history repeated itself and the sins of the father became the sins of the son as he did to his children what had been done to him.
I took a deep breath.
Fuck.
I swallowed the rest of my drink and turned to go back inside and came face to face with my cousin who had been standing behind me.
“Michael.”
I scowled. It had been two years since he’d cut me out of his life, and he was the last person I wanted to see today. “What are you doing here?”
He’d aged quite noticeably since I’d last seen him. Grey peppered his hair, lines etched his face and the weight had crept on. The life of a cop was not kind to the body. I knew that from my father, too.