Wild Abandon (2 page)

“You were a lot of fun last night,” she says.

I vaguely remember talking to her about my ex—the reason I was out, making bad decisions, in the first place.

“I hope I can still party like you when I’m thirty,” she says.

I cringe and feel the need to explain myself, “I don’t make a habit of this sort of thing.” I point my thumb to the door behind me and the sleeping Ian behind it.

The coed giggles and curiously eyes me. “Yeah, me neither.” She leans forward and gives me an exaggerated wink. “It was a good time until you started crying about how your eggs are going to shrivel up.”

Yep, time to leave.

I bail out the front door and pray I’m not too far from home.

The sun is even brighter than I thought, the city is louder than it needs to be, and from the stares I’m getting, I look way worse than I should.

I spin around and catch my reflection in a storefront. Matted hair that was pressed straight is now sticking up. I reach up and try to smooth them when I see the caked up mess that is happening under my eyes. I lick my fingers in an attempt to get rid of the raccoon-eyes. I smooth my fingers over my skin until I’m raw, and then decide a hot shower and a lobotomy are the only things that will make me look and feel like myself again.

Screw it. I stand up straight, chin up. Wearing a cocktail dress and five-inch heels on a street in downtown Manhattan, I do the walk of shame.

In New York City, you can pretty much do anything and not get noticed. I could wear a rainbow wig on my head and ride a unicycle while reciting excerpts from
The Vagina Monologues
, and no one would look twice. But a woman strutting down the street in last night’s threads with a face that screams,
I slept with a stranger
, and everyone seems to notice. Seriously, from the bread deliveryman to the early risers heading to SoulCycle, I’m like a magnet for attention. Even the homeless guy on the floor is giving me the side eye.

I reach in my purse and grab my phone. I need a distraction on my trek home, and Naomi is the only one who can provide it.

“Hello?” a groggy female voice croaks on the other end of the line.

I stop and smack myself on the head. “Holy shit. I’m so sorry. It’s got to be five a.m. in Napa.”

“It’s four. Please tell me you’ve been abducted, and you’re calling for the ransom because I’m seriously considering not paying it.”

I slump my shoulders a tad, feeling awful for waking up my best friend. “I’m not even thinking straight. Go back to bed. I’ll call you later.”

“No, no.”

I can hear the rustle of the sheets as her body crawls out of the bed she shares with her husband—a normal person you should be sharing a bed with, not a one-nighter you met on the Internet.

“Are you out of the house already? It sounds like you’re…” She pauses, and I brace myself for the revelation to hit her. “Crystal Reid, are you doing the walk of shame?” Her tone is shocked yet utterly amused.

“No,” I say rather defensively, “I’m just out, grabbing a coffee.”

“You have never been up this early on a Sunday. You went to the bar last night, and you are just now getting home. Oh my God, this is so unlike you. In the fifteen years I’ve known you, you’ve never had a one-night stand.”

“Shut up. My head hurts, my body is sore, and I feel really messed up about it right now.”

“You sounded pretty upset in your voice mail last night. You kept on mentioning Campari, cows, and Steven being a fucker. Wanna talk about it?”

Yes, after humiliating myself at work, I went home and learned that, while I was on my way to being an old maid who yelled at brides on their wedding days, my ex had officially moved on with his life.

“He got married, Nay. And he has a baby,” I state, still so confused as to how the man who had said he never wanted children actually went and had a child. Looks like he just didn’t want to have one with me.

“Crystal, I thought you were over this.”

How could I ever be over the man whom I’d eloped with after a whirlwind romance, only to find he duped me into thinking he was someone else, someone I could share my life with? Hell, I even moved to another state to be with him.

“If I had the right mind, I’d…” I pause, my shoes halting on the pavement, as an odd pang of shame washes through me. No, not from calling a bride ungrateful or from the almost one-nighter that will never be lived again. It’s something else.

A memory.

My phone.

Facebook.

Last night.

I pull the phone away from my ear, open my Facebook Messenger app, and say a silent prayer,
Please tell me I didn’t do what I think I did. Please don’t let me see that I—

I did.

Rolling my head back, I look at the sun and put the phone back to my ear. “I drunk-messaged him.”

Naomi lets out a sigh. “Drunk Facebooking is never a good idea. Did you at least write something good?”

I almost lie and make something up. Instead, I groan and unenthusiastically answer her question, “I wrote,
You ducker. You duckity, duck, duck ducker
.”

Naomi lets out a loud laugh. I can picture her grabbing on to her sides as she bellows over in hysterics. “Oh my God,” she says, mid laugh. “What is wrong with you? Why would you write something like that?”

“Stupid autocorrect wouldn’t even let me drunk-message my ex properly.”

Naomi is winding down from her laughter. Her sympathy genes are clearly missing in this conversation. “I’m sorry, but that is hilarious.”

Okay, fine, it is pretty funny. But she could at least pretend to feel bad.

She must sense my silence as annoyance because her tone changes as she says, “You need a reboot, babe. Get out of that city. Come to the West Coast and recharge your soul. Trust me, it’ll be your
Eat, Pray, Love
moment.”

“And where would I live?”

“With me. You can crash on the futon in my office. It’ll be like old times.”

“I’m a little old to be sleeping on a futon.”

“You’re a little old to be drunk-texting your ex.”

Thank goodness she can’t see the face I’m making at her correct yet unappreciated statement.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.” Approaching my building, I rest the phone on my shoulder as I take the keys from my purse and open the front door.

“Think about it. Offer is always on the table. Now, let me get some sleep because some people have to get up and feed children in the morning.”

I push the front door open and start the climb to my third-floor walk-up. “You only have one child, and she could probably raise herself since she’s so independent.”

“True,” she concedes and then adds, “Come to Napa. You’ll love it. Okay, that’s the last time I’m asking…today.”

We hang up the phone just as I step into my apartment. Falling back on the couch, my body relaxes, and the memories I wanted to forget start to surface.

I met Steven in Paris when I was twenty-three-years-old. I was taking a year off after graduation to “find myself.” My parents are heavy supporters of traveling by yourself for a year before you start the grind of day-to-day adult life. They’re kind of hippie-ish that way.

There I was, in the City of Lights, eating escargot and sipping Bordeaux when I spotted him sitting at a table nearby. He was alone and reading
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn. Even if he wasn’t American, I knew he at least spoke English based on the edition in his hands. He had curly sandy hair and cherub cheeks and looked like a nice enough guy. Lonely for company, I walked up to his table and asked him about the book. I quickly learned he was from Michigan and, like me, was backpacking through Europe.

After a long evening of wine and watching the lights of the Eiffel Tower sparkle, we got to know each other. By the end of the night we agreed to meet up the next day and then the next and the next.

Over six weeks we traveled across Europe together. We rode a gondola in Venice, drank Spaten at Oktoberfest, saw the windmills of Amsterdam, and tried to make the guards of Buckingham Palace smile. When it came time for Steven to travel back to the states, we decided we couldn’t be apart. We eloped at City Hall in New York City and I followed him to his hometown of Clawson.

I fell in-love with Steven in six weeks and six-months later I was packing my bags and heading home to New York. It was the first and only time my heart was broken. Shortly after moving to Clawson, I learned that the Steven I fell in-love with was not the real-life version of him. I fell for the fairy tale. The truth was, we didn’t have anything in common.

He was from an affluent family, me a modest upbringing.

He wanted a wife who would stay home and cook dinner. I can’t scramble an egg.

He hated classical music and didn’t see the cello as a viable career.

He loved hunting, took offense when I wouldn’t eat his kill and couldn’t appreciate my passion for animals.

And to top it off, he said he didn’t want children.

We fought about everything and nothing. Our days were filled with bitterness and contempt. When I finally left, he never followed.

He was the first person I pictured growing old with. My first romance, my first love, and my first marriage. Seeing him happy with a family made me sad for the life I once thought we were going to have together.

One I thought I’d have for myself by now.

Maybe Naomi is right. I need to try something new.

What is wrong with me?

I can’t quit my job and just haul ass across the country. Yeah, sure, I was fired from my weekend gig, but I still have a day job. I teach at the Juliette Academy, a music school in the city. I can’t just
not
be there when school starts next month…can I?

I am just about to get up and take the longest shower known to mankind when my phone chimes. I have a new text message from a number I don’t recognize. When I open it, I literally gasp at the photo of something I unfortunately recognize too well.

I am currently looking at the hammer in all its morning glory and a text message.

Ian: Mjolnir is looking for someone who is worthy and summons you back with its powers.

I don’t understand Thor references, but I have a pretty good idea Mjolnir is Ian’s penis.

I need to get out of this city.

I’ve officially lost my mind.

chapter ONE

When I boarded a flight from New York to San Francisco, I was excited to hit the Reset button on my life. What I wasn’t prepared for was the Reset button to be so damn cold.

Jesus H. Christ, this place is freezing!

Wearing a sundress and a light cardigan, I hug my arms around my body and wrap my bare legs across each other in an attempt to find warmth. Looking around me at the people wearing jeans, I see I’m the only one who didn’t get the cold memo.

A red car pulls up to the curb with a familiar face smiling from behind the wheel.

“You’re here!” Naomi opens the driver’s door and comes jogging around the front of the car to greet me.

She looks exactly the same as she did when we were kids. Dark hair, always a mess yet perfect for her casual attitude and appearance, hangs long and curly around her oval-shaped face. She is wearing black cargo pants and a tight white T-shirt. She hasn’t gained a pound in ten years, and it’s easy to see she’s been keeping up with her Pilates.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I say, wrapping my arms around her, hugging tightly, as only best friends do. I let out a sigh. “I think I’m having a quarter-life crisis.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Naomi gives me a pat on the back. Then, she holds me by the shoulders at arm’s length. “You’re too old for that. It’s more like a tri-life crisis.”

She winks as I give her the stink eye.

“Hi, Crystal!”

I look over to the backseat at the precocious eight-year-old with silky dark hair hanging out the window.

“Hello, Scarlet. You’ve gotten so big! I keep picturing you as this itty-bitty thing.”

“The average child between the ages of six and twelve grows approximately two and a half inches per year. It would be scientifically impossible for me to shrink,” Scarlet states matter-of-factly.

“Scar, what did we just talk about?” Naomi chastises.

This causes Scarlet to roll her eyes and talk from the back of her throat, “No one likes a know-it-all.”

Naomi’s mouth tightens as her brows go up in that way moms do when they are reprimanding their children. Even though she’s been a mom for over half a decade, it still baffles me that the girl who used to climb out of her building, using the fire escape, to party at clubs is rearing a daughter.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” Naomi grabs my suitcases and puts them in the trunk along with my cello.

I open the passenger door and climb in. Thank goodness for that because the hair on my legs was starting to grow from the goose bumps I was forming out here. I rub my hands together and blow hot air into them.

Naomi slams the trunk and then walks over to the driver’s side of the car. When she gets in, she looks at me with a laugh. “Cold?”

“No one told me to pack a parka.” I lean over to blast the heat. “It is August, right?”

“
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco
.”

I turn around to eye the little girl who is staring back at me as if all eight-year-olds quote literary giants.

“Mark Twain?” I ask.

Scarlet looks back at me as if I should know the answer. “While the quote is often attributed to him the actual author is unknown.
I
refer to it as the coolest quote Mark Twain never said.”

See? Precocious.