“It’s not embarrassing,” Rachel counters.
I set my drink down. “I was stumbling drunk in a gutter, okay? Rachel literally pulled me up out of the gutter, like I was a stray cat.”
Around the table, the guys all go still.
“It wasn’t quite as dramatic as that,” Rachel says.
“It was,” I press. “It was like that scene out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s where she chases after the cat in the rain. Rachel appeared looking like…well, her,” I say with a wave across the table. “I think you were even wearing the black dress and the pearl earrings. Meanwhile, I was the stinky, wet cat hiding in the gutter.”
“Why were you in a gutter?” Jake asks, his kind eyes locked on me.
I purse my lips, trying to suppress the memories of what is arguably one of the worst nights of my life. No such luck. Opening that mental door has it all sweeping back in. I can almost feel the cold rain on my skin.
“It was my birthday,” I begin. “I was supposed to be at my not-so-surprise party, but I chose to get drunk and stumble down the streets of Cincinnati instead.”
“It was my first night in the city,” Rachel adds. “The sport clinic took all the new residents out for dinner, hence my fancy duds.”
“Why didn’t you want to go to your birthday party?” Ryan asks, giving me his full attention.
I clear my throat, unabashedly holding his gaze. “Well, seeing as earlier that afternoon I caught my husband with his pants down in his office, choking his secretary with his dick, I wasn’t feeling in all that festive of a mood. Especially not once I got to the surprise party and saw her blowing on a noisemaker with the same lips she used to blow my husband. So yeah, I bailed through the bathroom window and took myself drinking instead.”
“Jesus.” With a glare, Jake glances around the table at his partners. “If any of you ever do that to me, I’m just setting the building on fire. You’ve been fucking warned.”
“I’m sorry, Tess,” Ryan says, his hand brushing my thigh.
I shift away, snatching for my drink again. “It all worked out in the end,” I say, going for a casual tone. “Rachel took me back to her hotel, dried me off, and tucked me in on her very uncomfortable sofa. I think I cried in her arms for two hours, threw up in the bathtub, and in the morning, we ate our weight in French toast. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
Rachel gives me a weak smile. It’s hard to think about where we started and not feel haunted by that most broken version of myself. That was Tess Owens at rock-freaking-bottom. Hopeless, joyless, friendless. I was too angry and embarrassed to go crawling back to Troy, back to the house that never felt like a home. I was ready to freeze in the gutter instead. I really did feel lower than a cold, wet alley cat.
But then Rachel was there, smiling down at me like a dark-haired angel. She held out her hand and literally pulled me from my misery. She took all those shattered, broken pieces of me and helped me hold them together with tape and glue. We moved in together, we cooked together, shopped for furniture and groceries. We made margaritas in our underwear and danced in the kitchen. And god but we laughed.
She’s a doctor, right? She knows how to diagnose a patient and prescribe the proper medicine. In my case, the cure to the bottomless shame and despair I felt over my failed marriage was rib-cracking, spleen-rupturing levels of uncontrollable laughter.
And meaningless sex with hot women.
Oh, and copious amounts of Thai food.
“You’ve come so far, Tess,” Rachel says from across the table. “I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time,” she adds with a smile at Ryan. “Jacksonville is good for you.”
“So is sex with hunky hockey players,” Caleb teases. “Ouch—” He hisses, glaring at Mars, who probably just kicked him under the table.
“Yeah, well you would know,” Rachel teases him right back.
Across from me, Jake laughs. “Dude, did you just call Langers hunky?”
“Shit, guys, it’s almost 1:00 p.m.,” Caleb says, ignoring his partners as he glances down at his phone.
Collective groans go up around the table. None of them want to go to the media event today.
They all slide out of the booth, Rachel’s guys each giving her a kiss in parting. Ryan and I drove together and I’m suddenly realizing that if he’s leaving— “Here,” he says, holding out his keys.
I glance up. “I can’t take your car.”