Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (59 page)

“That’s in the past Noah.” I sighed. I
took a sip of my champagne and shook my head. “I haven’t even thought about you
for years.”

“You do realize that just makes you even
hotter,” Noah told me, grinning again. “Not that you don’t already look
stunning tonight.”

“It’s not going to work, Noah. I’m in love
with Patrick.”

“Your mom didn’t even know for sure if he
was a real person; you can’t have been dating him for that long.” Noah reached
out and touched my arm. “You can at least hear me out, can’t you?”

I took a deep breath and another sip of
champagne. “You have fifteen minutes,” I told him.

“I’ve been doing really well—really well,”
Noah said, pouring himself a glass of champagne as well. “You’d be proud of me,
Mack.”

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” I said,
without any real enthusiasm.

“You remember how I wanted to start my own
business? I managed to save up and I’ve got a really great app I’m developing.”

“That’s great.” I said, and smiled as
brightly I could manage, hoping that I could get out of the conversation as
soon as possible.

But in spite of the obvious signs, Noah
didn’t seem to care; he started chatting about his life, asking about mine, and
as I drank more of the champagne I began to relax. “I’ve really missed you, you
know,” Noah told me at one point. “Come on, Mack—you have to admit that you and
I had some good times together.”

“We did,” I said.

“Like that time that we found the hot
spring at the campground? Oh man, I was thinking about that just the other day.”

I shivered, remembering that night with
Noah. He started to remind me of other times we’d spent together, and I had to
admit that before everything had gone so horrifically wrong between me and
Noah, we’d actually had some very good memories. It had made it that much
harder for me to break things off with him, even when I’d known that things
weren’t ever going to be the way they’d been at the beginning of our
relationship.

Noah had been a good guy at first; he’d
been charming and sweet, thoughtful and funny, and I’d been blown away at the
fact that he’d actually wanted to date me. Every weekend we’d gone out, and
even a few times during the week—and I’d loved the fact that I was dating a guy
who could party it up all night and then go to class the next day without
missing a beat, even if I couldn’t always match him.

I kept to the champagne, but Noah switched
to whiskey, sipping from a half-full glass with a little ice in it while we
talked. I started to think to myself that at least if my mom had been enough of
an idiot to invite a long-time ex-boyfriend of mine, it was nice that we could
just talk like this. Obviously enough time had gone past that we could maybe
even consider being friends, though when I thought about Patrick in the next
room with my parents, I decided I should probably ask his feelings about that
first.

“Oh god—it’s been ages since I thought
about Tracy and Ken,” I said, when Noah mentioned he’d spoken to the couple
we’d gone on so many double dates with. “Did they ever get married or
anything?”

“They have a kid together,” Noah said,
chuckling. “Still not married though. They say that they’re waiting for baby
number two, so they can have both a ring bearer and a flower girl.” I laughed
and rolled my eyes; it was exactly what I would have expected of the couple.

Noah started really knocking back his
drink, and I started to feel uneasy again. It was too easy to remember just how
things had started to go wrong between us; Noah’s partying had gone out of
control so many times towards the end of our relationship together that I’d
gone from fearing for his safety to fearing for my own.

“Just as a friend,” I said, gesturing to
the glass in his hands as he added more whiskey to it, “you should probably
slow down.”

“I’ve got a great tolerance,” Noah said,
shrugging. “And since I’m obviously not going to get you in bed tonight, it’s
not like I have to worry about whiskey-dick, right?” He smirked at me, his eyes
bleary.

“I’m sure that I’m not the only single
girl in this house right now,” I said; while we’d been talking, I’d seen more
and more people coming through, going into the living room to mingle with the
rest of the party. “Come on, Noah. Switch to water for a little while so you
can make it to midnight, how about that?”

“I can make it to midnight anyway,” Noah
told me with the sleek confidence that I had both loved and hated about him.

“Let’s get back out there before my mom
starts rounding people up for the stupid party games then,” I said. “You know
she’s going to make absolutely everyone participate.”

“I already put my resolution in the fish
bowl,” Noah told me. He leered, leaning in closer. “Do you want to know what it
is?”

“That would be cheating,” I said, trying
to keep my voice light in spite of how uncomfortable I’d started to feel.

“Just between you and me. Besides, it’s
only one…my New Year’s resolution is to get back into your bed.”

“You didn’t seriously put that in there,
did you?” I felt my cheeks burning at the thought of someone reading that out,
of everyone trying to guess who had written it, and how Patrick would feel when
he knew that my ex-boyfriend had “resolved” to sleep with me again.

“Nah—nah, I’m just kidding,” he said,
wagging his finger in my face. “But I had you there for a minute, didn’t I?”

“You did,” I admitted.

“I should’ve put that in. It’s totally
true. I do want to be back with you, Mack.”

“That ship sailed a long time ago,” I told
Noah. “And the way you’re acting right now doesn’t really make me want to try
and bring it back.”

“Your new guy got you flowers, big deal,”
Noah said. He pointed at the corsage pinned to my dress, rolling his eyes. “Do
you still have that necklace I got you when we were going together?”

I shook my head. “No,” I told him. “I took
it to a pawn shop and got all of twenty bucks for it.” It wasn’t entirely true;
I’d taken it to a thrift store and donated it, hoping that someone who wanted a
nice piece of jewelry would enjoy it since they didn’t have any memories like
mine attached to it.

“That’s cold, Mack.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? You burned
the bridge, Noah. I just managed to get to the other side.” I shook my head
again. “I’m going back to the party before my date thinks I’ve abandoned him.”

Chapter Eight - Patrick

I had started to actually worry about
Mackenzie as I spent more and more time talking to first her sister Evie and
then her brothers, Alex and John; while none of them gave me the third degree
quite like Mack’s parents had, it was obvious that they were curious about the
guy dating their sister. They asked me about Landon as soon as they confirmed
that I’d met Mackenzie through my son being one of her patients; they all
agreed that Mack had always been good with kids—and John even went as far as to
say that they’d all always thought it was a shame that Mack didn’t have any
kids of her own.

Mackenzie’s mom announced that it was time
for the annual “awards”—and handed out ballots; I took two, and looked around
for Mack once more. She appeared almost out of nowhere—I definitely didn’t see
her approaching before I saw her—and smiled up at me. “I was starting to worry
that someone had stolen you away,” I told her, leaning in to give her a quick
kiss. “I grabbed you a ballot for the awards.”

“Oh god, this is going to be humiliating,”
Mack said, grinning and shaking her head as she took my extra ballot and one of
the pens.

“I know we have some new people with us
tonight,” Katherine was saying, talking into the DJ’s microphone. “So here’s
the deal: I’ll announce each of the categories, and you can write in the name
of anyone at the party for that award. David will take up your ballots, and
we’ll tally up the votes—and then announce them after midnight.”

“I’ll tell you who to put in for some of
them,” Mack told me, grinning wryly. “Please—whatever you do: do
not
write me in for most likely to get
knocked up.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I told her,
giving her shoulder a squeeze.

“All right! Here we go. First category:
Most Likely to Go to Jail!” I glanced at Mack; she was scribbling something on
her ballot.

“Put in John for that one,” she muttered
to me, grinning.

“Oh? He’s like that is he?”

“The fact that he’s never been to jail is
evidence of the existence of luck,” Mack explained. I wrote in her brother’s
name for that one.

Everyone got into the activity as
Mackenzie’s mom announced each of the categories: Most Likely to Get Knocked
Up, Most Likely to Get a Raise, Most Improved Life, until I wondered if Mack’s
parents had come up with a category for each person at the party. Mack and I
joked while we filled out our ballots; she explained why it was funny for me to
put down who she told me to put down, and I did nominate her for one of the
awards without telling her: Prettiest Member of the Family.

We turned our ballots in and the DJ
started up again. I’d been looking for Mack ever since she’d disappeared in
part because however much her parents had made things awkward for me, they had
definitely managed to find one of the better DJs in the city—he wove together
David Bowie, Notorious B.I.G., Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, B52s, and more
without missing a beat, and I’d been wanting to dance with her all night. When
the DJ started playing The Strokes, I turned to Mack.

 
“Dance with me?”

“Absolutely,” she said, looking more
joyful than I had seen her appear almost all night since we’d walked into the
house. We moved onto the crowded “dance floor” that her parents had put up in
the big living room and started moving together to the beat. It had been ages
since I’d danced with anyone; I felt a little stiff at first, but then as I
realized that nobody in the room was going to be winning the trophy in a dance
competition anytime soon, I started to loosen up, especially as Mack swayed her
hips closer and closer to me, barely brushing up against the crotch of my pants
and shimmying her chest so that she almost touched me.

The DJ went from The Strokes to Tupac, and
Mack and I kept going, twisting and moving together; it was like there was no
one else in the whole world except for the two of us. I forgot that her
ex-boyfriend had even existed—all I cared about was the fact that Mack was
there with me, and that I would hopefully go home with her after the party was
over, making good on the kiss I’d get at midnight.

We got a breather after that when her dad
interrupted the flow to remind everyone to put in their resolutions; Mack
steered me towards the table where the big bowl stood, and we both wrote our
resolutions down. For myself, I resolved to give my son more of the love and
attention he needed—I figured that was as close as I could come to saying I
wanted to make Mackenzie a more permanent part of my life without opening her
up to embarrassment from family and friends. I didn’t know what Mackenzie
resolved to do in the New Year; we kept our resolutions secret from each other.

We went back out onto the dance floor
after that and started moving together again. The bass pulsed through us and we
were dancing closer and closer together, barely keeping things
family-appropriate. “God, I wish we could sneak off to your room,” I murmured
in Mack’s ear. She giggled, pressing her cheek to mine, brushing her breasts
against my chest as she moved and swayed.

“Everyone would notice if we did,” she
said, with real regret in her voice.

“Only thing keeping me from it,” I told
her. I managed to hold back when I gave her a quick kiss on the lips—but
barely. We were both drenched in sweat, and I think that Mackenzie was just as
grateful as I was when the DJ switched to a downbeat Yeah Yeah Yeahs song.

As it got closer and closer to midnight, I
started looking forward more and more to midnight. I would kiss Mack, we would
call Landon, and after sitting through the “awards” I would go home with her
just as soon as I could, to spend as much time as humanly possible making love
into the New Year. “You know,” I murmured in her ear as we slow-danced together
to “Heroes,” “if we could get some caffeine in us on the way home, we could
keep going until dawn—ring in the New Year together with as many orgasms as we
possibly can.” She giggled, shifting closer to me and tightening her arms
around my shoulders.

“That sounds good—what time do you need to
get Landon in the morning?”

“Probably the afternoon,” I told her.
“It’ll be as late as possible.”

“New Year’s Day brunch?”

“That sounds good: make love until dawn,
sleep for a few hours, pick my boy up from his grandparents’ house and get a
big stack of pancakes.”

We kept dancing together, taking a few
breaks to snag some of the food hanging around on tables all over the common
areas of the house. We talked to Mackenzie’s siblings, and the family friends
who had known her since she had been a child, and I realized that everyone was
trying as much as they could to make me feel like a part of the group; apart
from her parents, no one made me feel too much pressure, and I appreciated
that. Whenever someone got too pointed with their comments, Mack and I just
went back out onto the dance floor to avoid them, and she told me choice gossip
about whoever it was until we almost had to stop dancing from laughing so hard.
I couldn’t wait to be alone with her, but while we were obligated to be at the
party, I was at least glad that the food and drinks were good, that the music
was great, and that the atmosphere was relaxed.