“Maddening?” I ask, genuinely confused.
Shannon and Carol move closer to me. It’s like having slightly changed, younger versions of Marie and Jason love bombing me.
“He wouldn’t kiss you if he didn’t like you,” Shannon says under her breath.
“I’m still heee—eeerrrre,” Josh sings. “I haven’t left the room. You don’t get to do the chick thing.”
“Chick thing?”
“Where you discriminate against me because of my penis.”
“When did we start talking about your penis?” I squeak.
“Can we go back to dog butts? I’m less grossed out by that topic,” Shannon whispers.
“You are crowding me out of this girl talk because I don’t have the right equipment, and I don’t appreciate the exclusion.” Josh is serious. Oh, boy. He doesn’t get like this very often. Normally, the only time he draws this line is when we steal all the massage mystery shops.
“No one’s excluding you because of what you have in your pants,” Carols says with an eye roll. “We’re excluding you because it’s really obvious you have a thing for Andrew, too.”
That thought never, ever occurred to me.
“I do not!” Josh argues. But his scalp turns red. It’s bad enough to be a blusher when all that can turn red are your cheeks and neck, but the poor man is balding. He looks like Hellboy when he’s worked up.
A nerdy Hipster Hellboy.
“You came to the mall when Declan was playing Santa last year just so you could sit on his lap!” Shannon’s accusation has more bite than I would have expected.
“I did not...okay, I did,” Josh admits. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t gossip about Amanda’s sex life!”
“Is that what we’re doing?” I ask, incredulous.
“Duh,” they all say in unison.
“The only one of us with a sex life is Shannon, and she’s all settled and happy with her perfect billionaire and her wedding planning, so it’s not like there’s anything juicy there,” Josh explains.
“Other than what they did last night with a stick of butter,” I joke.
Oh. Looks like Shannon can blush and look just like Hellboy, too.
“I’m not having sex with anything that doesn’t have a battery tech support line,” Carol adds. “We have to talk about someone’s sex life. And Josh is a hopeless cause since his last boyfriend dumped him.”
Josh is nodding along to everything Carol says until that last bit.
“Hopeless?” He looks like he’s about to cry. “You really think I’m hopeless?”
“You use a car that advertises erectile dysfunction meds to find dates.”
“Better than dog asses.”
“Touché.”
Something in the back of my mind won’t let go. I feel a thin string unravel, as if a thread were caught from the hem of my skirt, except instead of a skirt, it’s my mind. I’ve forgotten something. It’s important.
“What time is it?” Carol finally asks.
“Time for Amanda to come with me to Anterdec for a meeting.” Shannon declares. “Eleven-thirty.”
Meeting. What is she talking about—
“Oh, my God! Andrew’s text. I have a meeting with him,” I gasp.
“You do?” All three of them raise their eyebrows.
“Yes. Eleven.”
Shannon frowns. “He told me to meet him at eleven-thirty. With Declan. Why would he want to meet with you earlier?”
This is one of those moments where I have to decide what kind of person I am. Do I lie to my best friend to save face for the man who won’t stop turning me into his own little county fair kissing booth, or does loyalty prevail?
“Oh, you know,” I say, trying to appear casual. “Maid of honor and best man stuff.”
I, apparently, am the kind of person who throws my best friend under a bus.
Shannon smiles, but the grin doesn’t meet her eyes. “That’s cute. Will you talk about that kiss, too?”
“That’s up to him,” I huff. “He’s never talked to me before about the other kisses.”
“Because he’s an asshole,” Carol says flatly.
“A hot asshole,” Josh says.
“You struggling with that, too?” Greg says from the hall as he walks by. “Just lay off the spicy curry. Takes a day or so to go away.”
We all wince.
“Is Anterdec hiring?” all three of us ask Shannon at the same time.
She just shakes her head slowly, like she knows something she can’t say.
Funny.
Same here.
Chapter Six
“I’ll drive,” Shannon says as I grab my purse and pointedly ignore Greg. Josh or Carol will tell him I have a meeting at Anterdec. He won’t care that it’s really about Andrew becoming CEO. He’ll think I’m drumming up more business for Consolidated Evalu-Shop.
We get outside and walk down the crumbling concrete steps. There is a limo in front of us.
“Is Declan here?” I ask. He and Andrew travel in the city by limo. The only time I’ve ever seen Declan drive a car is his SUV, and that almost seems like it’s for show. The guy claims he gets more work done when someone else is driving, but then why not let Shannon drive?
As Shannon looks embarrassed but determined, she opens the door and I look in.
No wonder she likes this limo thing. It’s the size of her entire old apartment in there.
“Why does it smell like chocolate?” I ask as I bend and settle in.