Knock Me for a Loop (16 page)

Unfortunately, since Ronnie and Jenna were now both seriously involved with two of the three men, asking them to avoid their significant others like the bubonic plague was kind of like asking the sun not to rise in the east every morning.

So instead of making her friends feel as though they had to choose between their men or her, Grace had suddenly become very, very busy and begun making excuses for not going out for drinks after their meetings.

She was sure her friends knew they were just that—excuses—but they’d played along. And truth be known, Grace had gotten a lot of extra work done in the time she wasn’t spending gossiping like a Desperate Housewife and sipping Limoncellos.

But she’d missed the weekly ritual, too. Missed the sense of decompression the tradition brought, as well as simply chatting with Ronnie and Jenna.

Which sort of made her peace treaty with Zack worthwhile. It meant that she could go to The Penalty Box again without worrying about bumping into him or feeling the overwhelming urge to throw a drink in his face. And without making her friends feel awkward or torn between two loyalties.

Chalk one up for waving the white flag of surrender. Something she never would have considered doing before, and especially wouldn’t have thought she’d end up being grateful for.

Look at me
, she thought with a silent chuckle and a grin she didn’t let reach her mouth,
making all kinds of personal growth without breaking out in a cold sweat.

Well, a moderate amount of personal growth, anyway. She still enjoyed thinking of it as maturity with a side of snark.

“Yeah, we’re going,” Ronnie said, slipping her arms into her calf-length, leopard-print coat and slipping the black buttons through their holes from bottom to top. “We’ve gotta pick up our guys before some other skanky hos do.”

Grace and Jenna both raised similar brows.

“
Other
skanky hos?” Jenna asked pointedly, pretending to be insulted.

Ronnie laughed and rolled her eyes at her own gaffe. “You know what I mean.”

To be polite, they asked if any of the other ladies from the group wanted to join them, just as they always did. Thankfully—or at least Grace was thankful—most of them passed. The knitting meetings ran late enough, making the older women and those with young children want to get home.

“I can spare another hour or two,” Melanie said.

And Charlotte added, “I still need to get home to feed my babies, but I’d love to join you for a glass of wine.”

They agreed to meet at the bar, whoever arrived first promising to find and save a table for the rest.

Fifteen minutes later, Grace walked into The Penalty Box behind Jenna and Ronnie, who both made a beeline for their beaus. The men were seated at a small round table near the front of the room, so they weren’t hard to spot.

Melanie waved to them from a booth at the back of the bar and Grace held up a finger, signaling that they’d join her in just a minute. Following her friends, she said hello to Gage and Dylan, trying not to act like she was overly concerned about Zack, even though she kept him in her peripheral vision the entire time.

She had to admit, he looked quite happy and comfortable. No doubt the past months hadn’t been any easier for him than they had for her.

Admittedly, before now, she hadn’t cared much what he’d been going through or how rough a time he was having. If anything, she’d have been delirious knowing he was miserable and suffering.

But now, being on a slightly different level than before…personal growth and all that…she realized that the same press that had hounded her had likely hounded him. The same outrageous headlines that had embarrassed, pained, and infuriated her had likely embarrassed, pained, and infuriated him. And if she had avoided people, places, and things for fear of running into him, then he had probably done the same to avoid a confrontation with her.

Recognizing those facts somehow made her feel a tad more sympathetic toward him. Not forgiving, not wipe-the-slate clean, but the other side of the coin was starting to become a little clearer when she hadn’t even noticed there was another side before.

“How’s your knee?” she asked quietly, sliding into a free chair between Zack and Dylan, who had Ronnie perched on his lap. Across the table, Jenna was sitting on the edge of her own chair, but she was leaning so close to Gage that she might as well have been in his lap.

“Good,” he responded. “Better.”

“Will you be in good enough shape to leave for New York on Monday?”

“Should be, as long as I don’t try to do any more heavy lifting,” he said.

At his words, she cocked her head and gave him a very pointed
Excuse me?
look. First Ronnie called her a “skanky ho,” and now Zack was calling her “heavy.” Much more of this kind of treatment from her so-called friends and she was going to develop a complex.

Zack’s mouth twisted half up in self-deprecating amusement, half down in remorse. “You know what I mean.”

She made a noncommittal noise. “Uh-huh. I suggest choosing your words more carefully from now on. Unless, of course, you want to make the trip to New York tied to the roof of your Hummer.”

This time, the lift of his lips was one hundred percent humor. “I forgot how vicious and bloodthirsty you could be.”

She smiled back. The smile of a cat who’s just picked the lock on the canary’s cage and swallowed his last yellow feather. “No you didn’t.”

For a second, he didn’t respond. And then he threw his head back, letting out a deep, belly-rumbling laugh. Dylan, Ronnie, Gage, and Jenna all whipped around, staring at them as though they’d just sprouted wings and cloven hooves, and the rest of the Box patrons followed suit.

Rather than being embarrassed, Grace thought it was funny. Every single person in the bar knew who she and Zack were, she was sure. She was also fairly certain everyone was well aware of their nasty breakup and the turbulent state of their relationship since then. Because of that, they had to be scrambling to figure out what was going on with the two of them sitting so close and
laughing
together.

She wondered how many would be on their phones within the next minute or two, calling and texting their friends or passing the information on to contacts they might have in the media.

“Good comeback,” Zack said, paying zero attention to the eyeballs still riveted on them from every direction. “Definitely deserving of a drink. Can I buy you one?”

Throwing her shoulders back and casting a glance toward the bar, she said, “Sure. I’ll have a Cosmopolitan. You can have it sent over to me at that table.” She pointed a finger in Melanie’s direction, then slid her chair back and got to her feet. “Come on, girls, let’s get away from all this testosterone and go have a few frilly, girly umbrella drinks.”

Ronnie and Jenna both stood, but before she’d completely slipped off Dylan’s lap, Ronnie muttered, “I don’t know, testosterone does have its merits.”

Then she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, as did Jenna to Gage’s, and the three of them headed to the back of the bar.

Row 15

“What was
that
about?” Ronnie wanted to know the minute they hit their seats at the back of the bar, well out of earshot of the guys.

“What was what about?” Grace asked, though she had a pretty good idea what her friend meant.

“The laughing. The grins. You and Zack acting like you’re old buddies and maybe …” She waggled her brows and then finished suggestively, “more?”

“I heard that,” Melanie said. “I thought I was hallucinating. Either that, or you were about to stab a fork into his thigh to teach him a lesson about being overly amused at your expense.”

Grace shrugged, folding her coat over the back of the booth seat and setting her purse at her feet. “Inside joke,” she said, unwilling to elaborate. “Besides, I told you at the meeting that we’re getting along better. I no longer fantasize about using him as a dart board.”

A waitress appeared with a pitcher of pretty pink liquid and four empty martini glasses. “Cosmos,” she announced, “courtesy of that table over there.”

She gestured toward Zack, Gage, and Dylan, and when they all turned in their direction, the three men raised their glasses of beer in salute.

“Well, that’s awfully nice,” Melanie remarked.

“Yeah. Wonder what made them feel so generous all of a sudden,” Ronnie added in a much wryer tone, as though she had some suspicions of her own about what had caused one of them, at least, to spring for their first round of drinks.

Ignoring both women, Grace lifted her attention to the waitress and said, “We’re expecting one more person, so we may need another glass. Unless Charlotte would prefer wine or something.”

The young woman in the skimpy shorts and tank Penalty Box uniform nodded. “Can I get you ladies anything else?”

The four of them exchanged glances, then responded in the negative. “Nothing right now, thanks,” Grace said.

A second after the waitress moved away, Charlotte bustled through the front door. She stood a few steps in for a moment, scanning the crowd until she spotted them, then made her way around tables and other patrons until she reached them. She struggled out of her bulky, oversize coat—the green so bright, it burned Grace’s retinas—before sliding into the booth beside Melanie, who scooted over to give her room.

“You’ve started without me, I see,” Charlotte remarked, but without a hint of disappointment or censure.

“The guys sent us a pitcher of Cosmopolitans before we even had a chance to order,” Jenna supplied. “We didn’t know if you’d like this or a glass of wine instead.”

“Hmm.” Charlotte studied the pink concoction in the pitcher and their four funnel-shaped glasses while she wiggled around, trying to find a comfortable position for her well-padded bottom. “I think I’ll go with a nice glass of red wine, thank you. You girls enjoy that.”

As soon as their waitress came into view again, they waved her down so Charlotte could place her order, then turned back and settled in for a friendly, relaxing chat about nothing in particular.

Or so Grace thought. She’d expected—apparently prematurely—that whatever curiosity had been roused about her and Zack by the round of free drinks had been forgotten with Charlotte’s arrival and the change of subject.

“So,” Jenna threw out, aiming her question at Grace and Grace alone before anyone else got the chance to speak, “
is
there anything more going on with you two?”

“All right, all right,” she relented on a long-suffering sigh. “But you have to swear…
swear…
’cross your hearts, hope to die, stick a knitting needle in your eye’ swear …that you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not your husbands, lovers, best friends, priests, or clergy of your choice.”

She narrowed her eyes and stared down each and every woman at the table. “Swear it, or you can go right on wondering and speculating until monkeys take over the world.”

There was murmuring, whispering, bent heads, and intense expressions. Finally they all looked at her, and Ronnie—who had apparently appointed herself spokesperson for the group—nodded. “We swear. Cross our hearts …” Each and every one of them began going through the motions of the old childhood pledge. “Hope to die. Stick a knitting needle in my eye.”

That was about as good as it was going to get. So now she either had to come clean or back out and risk having four drinks—with glasses—launched at her head.

Taking a deep breath, she counted to ten and clutched the stem of her martini glass until her knuckles turned white. Then she blurted out what had been squeezing her heart and scrambling her brain for the better part of the day: “He kissed me.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Oh, my
God.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“Oh, my.”

Blurted exclamations went around the table like toppling dominoes. Grace could feel her face heating, her stomach doing somersaults while they regarded her with wide eyes and even wider mouths.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ronnie said. She slapped the tabletop with a flat palm, tossed back the last of her drink, and refilled her glass, then gulped down another good portion of that. “Go back. Start at the beginning. We need details.”

Grace didn’t want to, but since the cat was out of the bag, she didn’t seem to have much choice.

“We were in the kitchen, talking about our trip to New York, and he just leaned in, grabbed me, and started kissing.”

“And I’m sure you remained stiff as a board, not kissing him back the least little bit, right?” Jenna pressed, a teasing note to her tone.

“I wish,” Grace said, letting out a baffled breath and making herself admit to her true reaction to The Kiss. “The minute his lips touched mine, it was like my brain melted and dribbled right out my ears. If he hadn’t twisted his knee, I probably would have stripped him down and done things with him that would have put him back in his wheelchair.”

Ronnie gave a low whistle, while Jenna chuckled even as her cheeks pinkened, and Melanie
whoohooed.
Only Charlotte remained silent, though her eyes sparkled and the corners of her mouth twitched merrily.

“So did you?” Melanie asked. “Jump his bones, I mean?”

Jenna elbowed her in the side. “She just said she didn’t. But only because he hurt his knee.”

Melanie blinked, looking slightly dazed and disconcerted. “Oh, right. I guess I got a little carried away imagining all that hot sex.”

“What’s the matter, Mel? Things running a bit on the cold side at home these days?” Ronnie queried.

The brunette rolled her eyes heavenward. “You try finding time to get naked and nasty when you’ve got two small kids underfoot twenty-four hours a day.”

“Aw, poor Melanie,” Ronnie said with a chuckle. “But think how much hot, sweaty sex you got to have before the munchkins came along.”

Melanie’s expression turned vacant and she tilted her head with a sigh. “Ahhh, those
were
the days.”

Grace remembered. Not the “before kids” part, but definitely the hot, sweaty sex. She remembered, and she missed it, which was probably why Zack’s kiss had turned her so upside down and inside out.

“What are you going to do?” Jenna asked her, toying with the stem of her glass, but not touching the Cosmo that still rose almost to the rim.

“About what?” Grace asked.

“About Zack. Do you think there’s something there? Do you think there’s any chance the two of you can work things out and get back together?”

The question caught Grace off guard, though maybe it shouldn’t have. Wasn’t that the exact same question that had been running through her head ever since The Kiss had taken place?

She might not have acknowledged it or let herself wonder about it too closely for too long, but it was there, floating in the ether and tugging at her like an invisible thread.

A week or two ago, the answer would have been simple. She’d have responded with a resounding
NO!
No way, no how, not in this lifetime.

But, oh, how things could change in the space of only a week, or a day, or an hour. Now, she just didn’t know.

Which was what she told her friends, very frankly.

“Do you still have feelings for him?” Melanie asked softly.

“Of course,” she responded truthfully and without having to think about it for even a second. “But I’m not sure they’re all
good
feelings. Am I still attracted to him? Sure. Do I want to be with him again? I honestly don’t know. Am I still angry with him? Yes and no. I’m not sure I know
how
to feel about him these days, because it all depends on whether or not he cheated on me back in Columbus or before, and I don’t know what the hell to believe about that anymore.”

Feeling more frustrated than ever, she picked up her Cosmo and gulped, enjoying the warm sting of alcohol sliding its way down her throat to pool in her belly.

Ahh, vodka, the perfect cure-all. If only it lasted more than a few precious hours.

“Well, I, for one, hope you do get back together,” Melanie said with conviction. Cosmo-bolstered conviction, maybe, but conviction all the same. “I thought you made a great couple, and a big part of me wants to believe that Zack
didn’t
cheat on you.”

Though Grace had never put her exact thoughts into words before, she found it effortless to do so now. “Me, too,” she admitted.

“So maybe you should give him a second chance,” Ronnie suggested.

At Grace’s sharp look, she said, “I know, I know, it won’t be easy. But I’ve grilled Dylan within an inch of his life, and if he knew or even suspected Zack had truly been unfaithful, he’d have said so by now.”

Even though Grace wasn’t at all sure it was the right thing to do or if she had the resolve to follow through on it, she made herself open her mouth and say, “I guess I could try.”

“There you go,” Ronnie chimed cheerily. She even leaned into Grace, nudging her harder than necessary with her shoulder.

Grace only wished she felt the same level of enthusiasm. Instead, a lump the size of a hockey puck seemed to have wedged itself solidly behind the wall of her chest.

“Wait a minute.” The now-empty drink pitcher gave a clunk as Ronnie set it back in the center of the table. She glanced around, brows drawn down in a frown.

“What’s the matter?” Grace asked.

Pointing her finger at each of the women in their party, Ronnie said, “Charlotte had wine. The rest of us had Cosmos, and I’ve refilled almost everyone’s glass at least once. Everybody’s but Jenna’s.”

All eyes turned in that direction. The petite, dark-haired woman blushed and shrank back slightly against the bench seat. Sure enough, her martini glass was still full and pushed a few inches farther away than one might expect.

“I’m not thirsty,” she said, but the excuse sounded lame even to her own ears, if her downcast glance was any indication.

“Would you like something else?” Grace inquired, a sneaking suspicion beginning to play through her mind. “A soda, maybe? Or just plain cranberry juice?”

Jenna’s head jerked up, her wide eyes making her look decidedly guilty…of something.

“Oh, my God!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God!”

Grace’s mouth curved in a sly smile.

“You’re pregnant!” Ronnie’s exclamation was nearly loud enough to echo off the walls and be heard over the rest of the din filling the bar.

“
Shhhhhh,”
Jenna hissed, cringing as she whipped a worried glance in the direction of the men’s table. “I haven’t told Gage yet, and he would kill me if he found out he wasn’t the first to know.”

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” Ronnie said again, this time in a stage whisper that wouldn’t be overheard by anyone who wasn’t at their table, let alone across the room. “This is wonderful. I’m so happy for you. Congratulations!”

Which pretty much summed up everybody’s feelings, but they each added their own exuberant wishes, either hugging her or reaching out to squeeze her arm, depending on where they were seated around the table.

“When did you find out?” Grace asked, beaming. Despite the mess her own life was in at the moment, she was thoroughly delighted for her friend.

Jenna had been wanting a baby ever since she and Gage married the first time. Though he’d been on board at first, something along the way had changed his mind, and that change had caused them to split.

They were married again, thank goodness—if any two people had ever belonged together, it was Gage and Jenna—and this time, they were both on the same page about starting a family. In fact, according to Jenna, Gage had been almost single-minded in his intention to knock her up. Either that, or he just really, really liked making love to his wife.

Grace supposed that was the real motivation behind his attentiveness…and the trying-for-a-baby thing was just a nice side benefit and excuse for getting vertical as often as possible.

“Last week,” Jenna told them. “I want it to be a surprise, though, so I’m planning to tell him this weekend before we go house hunting. He’s going to flip,” she said, and it was her turn to beam.