“It’s okay. I’m fine. Totally fine. No big deal,” I mutter to myself as another shot is placed into my hand.
“I think that’s enough shots,” Lorelei tells Paige as some of the alcohol misses my mouth when I tip the glass back and it dribbles down my chin.
“A little tequila is good for the soul,” Paige replies as she pulls a tissue out of her purse and wipes my chin.
The alcohol is starting to kick in and the liquid courage is flowing through my veins. Who cares if she looks like Pamela Anderson and is half my age? Who cares if she can put both her feet behind her head and is so skinny that when she turns sideways she disappears? Not me. I could kick her ass with no arms or legs. I could kick her ass with LORELEI’s arms and legs. I could kick her ass with my newly highlighted hair while swinging Lorelei’s arms and legs over my head.
I think I’m drunk.
“Maybe you should take her gun away from her,” I hear Lorelei mutter right next to me.
Just when I think my courage is off the charts, Harlot Barbie turns in my direction and we make eye contact. It could be the jukebox in the corner of the bar messing with me, or it could be the tequila, but I’m pretty sure I just heard the whistling tune of the gun-duel music that plays in old westerns.
The crowd parts like the Red Sea as she smiles and starts walking in my direction. Barbie’s sidekicks, Skipper and Stacie, follow closely behind her until she stops a foot away from me and they both bump into her back, sending them all stumbling forward in a mess of blonde hair and fake boobs.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Paige mutters next to me.
“Kennedy! It’s so good to see you! These are my friends, Misty, with a y and Tiffanie with an ie,” Chloe says brightly.
“My IQ just dropped a hundred points,” Lorelei whispers into my ear.
Suddenly, standing this close to the woman who stole my husband, I don’t feel so good about myself. I can actually feel the tequila churning in my stomach and my awesome hair that Paige styled wilting into an ugly mess.
“How have you been? I feel like we haven’t talked in ages,” Chloe says with a pout of her perfect collagen-injected, bright pink lips.
Is this bitch serious? She’s acting like we’re old friends and not like I walked into my home to find her deep-throating my husband on my couch. MY couch. The brown leather piece of perfection I got on sale before I left for Afghanistan. I had to bleach the couch two days later. And then it was completely ruined. I miss that couch.
I can’t even find my voice to tell her off. I’ve dreamed of this moment for months: coming face-to-face with my archnemesis in a bar with my friends, full of booze and looking awesome, and telling her exactly what I think of her while pummeling her face into a pile of wet dog food.
Instead, I feel like a pile of wet dog food. Wet dog food covered in shit and stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe. I feel inadequate. I never feel inadequate. I never care what people think of me, but right now I feel sorry for myself and I want to go off into the corner and cry into an entire bottle of tequila.
Before I can cede my title of awesomeness to the better woman, I feel warm hands grab onto my hips and then slide around to my front, pulling me back against a rock-hard chest. I see Chloe, Misty, and Tiffanie’s eyes widen and their mouths drop open as fingers graze my bare shoulder and push my hair to the side before soft lips are pressed to my neck.
“Hello, gorgeous. Sorry I’m late. Traffic was a bitch.”
I close my eyes as Griffin’s voice rasps right by my ear, just loud enough for everyone in my general vicinity to hear. Without thinking, I turn in his arms and rest my hands against his chest. The corner of his mouth tips up in a mischievous grin as he stares into my eyes. One of his hands comes up and grabs onto the back of my neck, his other hand slides down to my ass and he pulls me roughly up against him. Without even sparing a glance to the three women behind me, his head swoops down and he crashes his lips against mine.
My brain shorts out and I can practically hear the crackling of electricity in my head when his tongue slides against my lips and I instinctively open my mouth to him. His tongue slides achingly slow against my own as he deepens the kiss and everything around me disappears. I tightly grab on to chunks of his hair on the back of his head to hold him in place as he tilts his head to the side to get a better angle.
Jesus, God, this man can kiss.
I raise myself up onto my toes and wrap my arms fully around his neck so I can press as close to him as possible while his mouth works slowly against my own. As his tongue continues to swirl around mine, I feel a tingle shoot through my body and it makes me want to wrap my legs around his hips and slide myself against the hardness I can feel pressed against my lower stomach.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear Lorelei clear her throat loudly and Griffin slows down the kiss, ending it with a few soft pecks on my swollen lips before pulling his head back to stare down at me.
“Ummmm, so what’s new with you?” I hear Chloe ask from somewhere to my right.
“Sorry to be so rude, but Kennedy can’t talk right now,” Griffin responds without taking his eyes off my face. Normally I would protest when a guy speaks for me, but he’s right. I can’t talk right now. I can’t even feel my legs. Do I still have legs? What day is it?
He continues to stare directly at my lips as he removes his hand from my ass and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and extending his arm out in Paige and Lorelei’s general direction. “Next round of drinks is on me. If you ladies will excuse us, Kennedy and I are going to find a quiet corner where we can be alone.”