“Gin, what’s going on? Why are you out of breath?” I glanced at the clock and it read eleven o’clock in the morning, eight Pacific Time.
Wes and I’d stayed in today, resting, watching movies, and having room service. We were both scheduled for some pampering couples' massages in the hotel spa in an hour, but I figured now was as good a time as any to give my girls the news. I’d called Maddy already, and she was ecstatic. Talked all about us having a double wedding when she graduated. Humoring her was the only option when dealing with a full-on over-excited Maddy. I did, however, neglect to tell her that Wes believed he was marrying me on New Year’s Day. That was something I wanted to tell her in person, over drinks, possibly more than a few.
“Um, no reason. Ohhh, uh…mmm. Stop it,” she said through the phone, but I doubted she was talking to me.
“Oh, you little ho-bag. You’ve got a man there!” I giggled into the phone and tsked for her benefit. She’d be giving me a steaming bag of shit if the roles were reversed.
“Huh? No. No man. Me? Pshaw.” She over-exaggerated. “Fuck…right there.” She whispered in a way I could tell the phone was away from her mouth, but nowhere near far enough for me not to hear her words.
“He’s fucking you right now?” Blech. There are some things you don’t want to share with your best friend. This was one of those things.
“Mia, babe, this is a bad time. So…so…bad…” Her voice trailed off.
“Really? Okay, well, just wanted to give you a heads up that Wes asked me to marry him. I’m getting married on January first, destination to be determined. Enjoy your fuckfest.”
I pressed the End button and counted down waiting for it.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
The phone rang in my palm. “Skank-a-lot-a-Puss Calling” was displayed on my cell. I waited until four rings just to make her skanky ass burn.
“Done fucking the man you’re pretending not to so soon? Must be a lousy lay.” I rushed to give her a taste of her own medicine.
Her breath was labored, though I gathered from the noises she was shuffling around the guest house. “You called me, remember? At eight o’clock in the mother flippin’ morning, on a weekday, while I was getting my hoo-hah sucked on for the first time in months and dropped that bomb on me? You suck. You know that, Mia?” She said with a heaping dose of irritation. “If you knew how bad you sucked…you’d say…God damn, I sucked!”
I snort laughed, fell back on the bed, and looked at my ring sparkling in the sunlight. Magnificent. I could not stop looking at its splendor.
“You done bitching?”
Ginelle groaned. “Well, now that I’m sans one rockin’ orgasm due to your hooker-ass dropping massive bombs on my pleasure palace, yeah, I’m done. Now, start from the beginning and tell me everything. You leave a single detail out, and I’ll replace the shampoo in your bathroom with Nair. See how much Wes likes a bald bride.”
Laughing, I went through the story of how he’d asked me. I’d spared Maddy the details that we’d just had some seriously awesome sex but not to Gin. My best friend lived off those kinds of stories.
“Wow. He’s a damn keeper for sure. So, are you really going to marry him on New Year’s Day?”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “Not sure. He seems pretty set on it. I guess the when really doesn’t matter to me. Wes, on the other hand, is bound and determined to start the new year off as Mister and Missus. Which is really funny since, when I met him in January, he was of the exact opposite mindset.”
“You were too, though,” she added helpfully.
“Not wrong there. It seems like years have gone by since then, and really, it was only ten months ago. Do you think I’m crazy or jumping into this with him?”
“Hold on.” I could hear her walking through her little guesthouse back in Malibu. A door opened and closed again, and I could just barely hear the ocean waves. She was probably on the patio overlooking the Pacific.
I had been gone only two days, and I already missed home. Amazing how quickly Wes’s mini-mansion had become home for me in such a short time.
“Really, Mia, you know I’m no expert on love, but I am an expert on you. You’ve been through some shitty men in the past.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“No, I must, because that’s part of what makes you who you are today. Aside from douchebag Blaine, there were a few before him that you fell for, and they broke your heart.”
“True.” I nodded and worried at my fingernail, picking at a jagged edge.
“But none of them broke you. Wes being gone in Indonesia? That destroyed you.”