Thursday Nights (The Charistown Series) (9 page)

Janie had responded with an anger she had never felt or unleashed before. “And there will never be a day that I don’t hate all of you for exactly that.” She hung up the phone and cried for hours.

“Do you feel better?” Lyla had gently asked while stroking her back. Janie, eyes red and swollen, shook her head.

Lyla had handed Janie the phone. “You’ve been holding that in for years. You needed to get it out. But honey, you don’t do angry…it’s not you. Call your brother and get un-angry.”

With Lyla’s
encouragement, Janie called each of her siblings. While it never made them close, they learned to talk occasionally and see each other a few times a year. That is as much of her biological family Janie wanted, though.

“This is as good as it gets, Jane,” Lyla said as she tossed the ingredients for the salad. Janie didn’t respond, and Lyla snapped her fingers in front of her friend’s face. “Earth to Janie!”

Janie shook off the memory. “I’m sorry, Ly, what were you saying?”

“I was asking you if you heard from Max,” Lyla lied with a smile.

“Lyla Paige Dalton, you may be a wonderful writer, but you’re a
horrible
liar, and that is one reason why I love you so much. You were
not
asking about Max. But since you are now… yes, he texted me. He
texted
me,” she repeated, her voice tinged with anger. “Nothing says thanks for the smokin’ hot sex like a text. Oh, and before you ask, he wanted to know if dinner was at my place or yours.”

Lyla said nothing; she didn’t have to because Janie kept talking. “I texted him back one word—
Lyla’s
—and that was it. I’m beginning to wonder if Thursday night was just a figment of my imagination.”

“Nope.” Lyla glided past Janie, placing a kiss on her head. “I heard him in your kitchen on Friday morning with my own ears. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he sounded like a happy man. Play tonight by ear, and let’s see what happens. And remember, you guys were friends first.”

Frustration coiled in Janie’s belly. “Right…friends.”

The doorbell chimed at four o’clock, bringing the first guests. Ashley and Ryan were a modern-day Barbie-and-Ken combo standing there at the door, each accessorized with tattoos and perfectly placed piercings. They worked at Danny’s together, rented a house together, but God forbid anyone imply that they were more than roommates—daggers would fly from both of them. They were the most beautiful non-couple you could imagine, though.

Janie thought back to when she and Lyla had first started hanging out with the crew from the bar. No one had warned either woman not to ask about the apparently touchy subject of Ryan and Ashley’s non-relationship. In fact, it seemed as if Lyla and Janie were encouraged to ask. When the topic finally came up one night after the bar had closed and the women were loosened up from margaritas, Ryan and Ashley performed their own version of the Exorcist while the rest of the group laughed hysterically at Janie’s and Lyla’s expense. It was the proverbial “Welcome to the Family.” Janie stifled a giggle at the memory.

“Asshole here forgot to pick up flowers on the way home from the gym,” Ashley said with a wink. Everything Ashley said and did was done with grace and ease—even calling one of her best friends an asshole. She saved all of the drama for Ryan himself. It just made Janie laugh. Ashley was too easygoing to ever be annoyed with, a rare quality to find in a girlfriend, so Janie cherished their time together.

“First of all, I am not an asshole. Second, what
Princess
forgot to mention is that she sent me a text asking me to pick up the flowers when she heard the front door open as I got
home
from the gym. Nice timing, sweetness.” Ryan shot Ashley a look that Janie couldn’t decipher. “Besides, I brought beer.” He winked and kissed both Lyla and Janie before he went to the kitchen to put the beer in the refrigerator.

“Ok, children,” Janie announced in her teacher voice. “Go to your corners or you’ll both end up in time out.” She put her hands on her hips. “And no recess!”

Ryan chuckled. “Janie, if you were my teacher, I would have never missed a day of school.”

“Ass kisser,” Ashley teased. With that, there was a knock at the door. The rest of the group had arrived.

Danny and Julie came with cookies and wine, and Kyle showed up looking hungover but still sexy as hell in all his scruffiness. His eyes were red-rimmed with dark circles underneath, though, and worry for Kyle bloomed in Janie’s chest. He was leaning against the door in his I’m-too-cool-for-this way, but Janie had a feeling if the doorjamb moved, Kyle would fall over.

“Rough night, buddy?” Ryan asked with a smile.

“Something like that,” Kyle muttered. He leaned down to Lyla and kissed her cheek. “Hey, sexy,” he said in his usual flirty tone, but his eyes held exhaustion instead of a sparkle. Janie watched with fascination as Lyla breathed him in and then rubbed her arms.
Lyla is digging Kyle still? Huh…interesting.

Kyle was a beautiful man—six-foot-three, black hair, green eyes, olive skin. He was walking, talking sex. Ladies at the bar lined up to get his attention, and it wasn’t abnormal for them to follow him into the bathroom, just in case he needed “help.”

“Where’s Max?” Janie heard someone ask as the doorbell sounded again.

Max stood outside Lyla’s door for five minutes before ringing the bell. He couldn’t decide if he should join his
family
for dinner or go home to his empty house. He knew she was in there. He knew he was a bastard for not calling her, but he also knew that he couldn’t walk away from Lyla’s house without seeing Janie. So he rang the bell.

Lyla opened the door, and while her mouth smiled, he could see the disappointment in her eyes. Lyla was a horrible liar.

“It’s good to see you, Max. Come on in.” Max leaned in to hug and kiss his friend, and his eyes immediately found Janie in the crowded room. He felt his shoulders tense and his spine straighten.

“Breathe,” Lyla whispered in his ear. “You know I adore you, but you did promise to be a kind man. And I hate broken promises.”

Stepping back, she motioned for him to come in. “Come on in,” she voiced cheerfully—and louder this time. “Can’t start dinner without you.”

Max looked down at the petite, espresso-haired girl whose presence was so much bigger than her form. Not to mention her uncanny ability to always have the answers, even to the questions unasked.

Max he nodded his head. “I hope not,” he said, stalking further into the house.

The slow, easy pace of the evening was familiar and comfortable. Sunday dinners were always about relaxing, never formality. Max watched Janie bounce from room to room with a light that he could only wish would warm him again. The first ten or fifteen minutes after he had arrived were straight-up awkward.
She won’t even look at me
, he thought to himself. He knew he deserved her cold shoulder, but it felt like an ice pick through his heart. He had to do something.

He approached her on her way back from what must have been Lyla’s guest room. In that moment, Max realized after all the times he had been to Lyla’s he had never seen the bedrooms nestled in the back. Lyla had a way of making you feel at home in her house without ever letting anyone get too close.

Shock crossed Janie’s face when she first came out of the room, but he preferred shock over the wooden smile that took its place. “The bathroom is over there, Max. You know that.”

Before Janie could move farther away, Max gently slipped his large hand around her arm and kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Janie—”

Max didn’t get to complete his sentence before Janie interrupted him. “Look, it’s no big deal. You wanted me, I wanted you. Sex with friends, right? I guess a call would have been the friendly thing to do but…whatever.” She sighed. “I’ll get over it. I’m not gonna go all psycho-chick on you, okay? We’re good.” Janie stood on her tiptoes and kissed Max’s cheek.

“We’re good,” he heard her repeat to him, as well as to herself, as she walked away. Max was stunned stupid. Here, he was going to apologize for acting like an asshole. He wanted tell Janie that he wasn’t good enough for her. He wanted her to have something better than what he could give her. But, God love her, Janie thought he could just be done with her already? When she’d occupied his every thought for the past three days?

Max shook his head.

Sex with fucking friends—what was he thinking?

Ok
ay, Janie thought to herself,
that sounded believable
.
I can totally do this
. Sure, she was hurt. After the night they shared, how could he walk away and not look back? But she was more disappointed in herself. She knew Max didn’t do relationships. She didn’t know why because he never opened up about that kind of stuff, but she knew he steered clear. She had taken what he offered on Thursday night like a kid trick-or-treating, and now she needed to find a way to be happy with the candy she had in her bag and move on
. I can get through tonight without looking like a kicked puppy...I know I can.

Janie tried to focus on the girlfriends who sat around her in the small family room, drawing their strength unknowingly. But all she could hear were mother’s words echoed in her head.

“My God, kid. Don’t be so pathetic—you look like a whipped puppy,” her mother would hiss. “You know the drill. I just need the apartment for an hour or so. Get your shit, and go to the park. I’ll try to be done by dark. If not, wait on the steps outside.” Janie would take her warmest sweatshirt, her blanket, and her book of fairy tales and walk to the closest playground, so her mother could meet with her current “boyfriend” to get her “medicine.”

The sound of Ashley’s voice pulled Janie out of her past.

“I love how you instituted the rule on clean up, Ly.” Ashley giggled. Danny, Ryan, Kyle, and Max cleared the table while Janie, Lyla, Ashley, and Julie sat drinking cocktails.

“Seriously, I’ve been married to Danny for close to thirty years, and I have to ask him almost every night to help me,” Julie said. “How the hell do you pull off telling
,
not
asking
, only
once and get all of the men fall into line like that?”