“Except now,” Autumn said, “we’re starting to figure out how much we don’t know that we don’t know.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?”
“You have a lot of secrets,” Kat said. “That’s our point.”
I waved them off. “Not a secret.”
“We’ve been your best friends since college. We’re all just about forty,” Lizzy said. “At this point, anything we don’t know about each other pretty much counts as a secret.”
“What, you guys are legit upset about this?” I asked. “It’s ballroom dancing, not a secret divorce.”
Teddy cleared her throat. “Um, I suppose now might be a good time to come clean on the secret divorce front.” We all pivoted to focus on Teddy; she lifted her shoulders and grinned sheepishly. “I was actually married to Thomas.”
We all just blinked.
I frowned at her. “Thomas, your ex-boyfriend, who hit you, whom Lizzy’s Magnum P.I. buddy beat up? That Thomas? You were married to him?”
She nodded. “I was. For six months. And that wasn’t actually the first time he’d hit me—but it was the last. After Lizzy’s friend worked him over, I had a client of mine who was a lawyer draw up divorce papers, and I got a sheriff friend to serve them. And then that same private investigator friend of Lizzy’s intimidated him into signing them without contest. And then another friend, this one a judge, got the divorce pushed through in record time.” She sighed. “I called in pretty much every favor I had saved up.”
“And you didn’t tell us?” Kat asked. “We’re so fighting.”
“I was embarrassed,” she said. “And scared. And confused. Thomas had me so mixed up. Unless you’ve been in a situation like that, you don’t know what it’s like. How easy it is to…to get mixed up, in your head, thinking it really is your fault. And then trying to get out of it, to get away from him without dragging you guys into it?”
Lizzy hugged her. “We’re your friends. It’s our job to get dragged into things like that.”
Autumn was on the other side of Teddy. “Honey-bunny. We would have gone to war with that asshole for you. You should’ve told us.”
Titus had his arms crossed over his chest. “You guys are something else.”
“Titus!” Seven’s voice boomed from across the yard. “Come do a shot with us, dancin’ man!”
Titus waved at us, and strode—swaggered, really—across the yard, catching his vest off the chair and shrugged it back on, joining the circle of guys around the bar, his long sculpted arms slinging across the shoulders of Seven and Lon as he leaned between them.
Lizzy watched me watching him, smirking. “You like him.”
I ripped my gaze off of him. “Do not.”
Kat socked my shoulder. “Do too. You guys look good together.”
“Yeah you do,” Zoe said, eyeing him appreciatively. “I mean, I know you’ve got dibs, but that man is sex on a stick.”
“He’s a dick on a stick, is what he is,” I snapped.
“Good kind of dick or bad kind of dick?” Kat asked.
I groaned. “The bad kind, Katja. Obvi.”
“Why?” Kat asked, her expression a mix between a confused frown and an amused grin. “Because he has the utter, unmitigated gall to be an incredible musician, a great dancer, sexier than socks on a rooster, and likes you? The asshole. How dare he?”
I shook my head. “You guys suck.”
“No, but I bet you will before the night is out,” Kat said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Him, that is.”
Autumn held up a hand. “Actually, if you’re going to do any sucking or any other sexy time activities, you’d better do it soon, because our party bus to the hotel is going to be here soon.”
“There’s no hanky-panky happening tonight,” I said. “Zip, zero, zilch, nada.”
“Maybe not tonight,” a leonine voice said, behind and above me. “But you do owe me a date.”
I turned slowly to look up at him. “You played me.”
He smirked. “How? I told you I was good at the samba. You’re the one who didn’t believe me.”
I huffed. “Fine. One date. Let it never be said I don’t honor my wagers.” I glared up at him. “What’s the date, big fella? Sex party in your fancy penthouse condo?”
He just laughed. “You think you know, but you don’t know.” His gaze heated. “The one thing you’d better learn now, Laurel McGillis, is that nothing you think you know about me is going to be accurate. Being able to samba is only the first and smallest of the ways I’m going to surprise you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, sure, whatever. Just name the time and place.”
“Titus!” Seven’s voice again. “The limo is here, buddy. Time to get lit the fuck up!”
Titus grinned down at me. “You’ll find out. It’ll be what you least expect, and when.”
I sighed, annoyed. “And I hate surprises. So this will be fun for one of us.”
He stepped into me, hips to hips, chest to chest, his hot tawny eyes on mine. “You’ll have the best time ever, Laurel.”
His big callused hand went to my cheek, thumb brushing my cheekbone, while the other wrapped with possessive, casual familiarity low around my waist. As if I really was his. As if we were an item, a couple, a thing.
“Every single fuckin’ second we spend together will be a second you never forget.” He bent down, nose slanting across mine, and his lips slid over mine in a teasing whisper of an almost-kiss. “I promise.”
And then he was gone.
And I was dizzy, my lips still tingling where his had not exactly touched, my hips tingling with leftover electricity where his hands had been.
“Goddammit,” I hissed, watching him swagger around the side of the yard to where the wrought iron gate opened to the front yard and driveway, breaking into an easy trot as Seven leaned on the horn of the party bus. “I am so fucked.”
Kat wrapped an arm around me. “Not yet you’re not. But something tells me the moment he gets you alone, you will be. A lot, and hard, and well.”
“Once upon a time, that would have sounded great,” I whispered, “now, I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure my heart would survive that intact.”
“What do you have to lose, Laur?” Kat asked.
“Everything,” I breathed; realizing I was still touching my lips, I jerked my hand away.
“Oh, well that explains it,” Kat said, her tone dripping with snark.
Autumn and Lizzy both laughed, coming alongside me and putting their arms around me.
“Actually, it does,” Lizzy said.
Autumn kissed my temple. “My advice, babe? Just go with it. Fighting is useless.”
Teddy joined on one side, and Zoe the other, so the whole group of us were in a line abreast, arms around each other’s shoulders.
I pushed away from the group hug. “Can we just go get drunk, please?”
Lizzy just laughed and hooked her hand around my elbow. “I understand, Laurel, trust me I do.”
“Yeah, but it worked out for you,” I said. “That stuff never works out for me.”