Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
I crack up listening to them all together. Since the women around the table are Hannah’s friends, I’m sort of the odd man out in the group, but they’ve been so welcoming. Too welcoming.
“Scarlett, you’re up! Same question. When did you have the best orgasm of your life?”
A laugh bursts out of me. “I can’t answer that!”
“Yes you can! Don’t be coy. We know you aren’t a prim-and-proper attorney all the time. Gotta take those sensible slingbacks off sometimes!”
Hannah promises to cover her ears, and I shrug. “It was a few weeks ago.”
Hannah frowns. So much for covering her ears…
“With Jasper?” she asks, looking personally offended by the notion.
I nearly spit out my champagne. “After Jasper.”
Her eyes alight with excitement. “Who!?”
I shake my head and look down. “Just…a one-night stand.”
I reach for the Dom and fill up my glass, hoping that by the time I’m done, everyone will have moved on to someone or something else. But when I set the bottle back down, I look up to see eight pairs of eyes blinking at me expectantly—a parliament of curious owls.
“This one-night stand gives you the best orgasm of your life and that’s it?” Jordy asks me. She’s the one who originally wanted to play the game, and as Hannah’s most outgoing friend, I know she’ll die before she lets me off the hook on this one.
“Do you know him?”
“Where’d you meet him?” someone else asks.
I shrug and drink. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Umm, it extremely matters,” Jordy says with righteous indignation.
“He wasn’t a stranger,” Hannah smartly guesses with a confident smirk. Her astute gaze is focused on my reddening cheeks.
“Let’s move on!” I blurt out. “Jordy, I dare you to give the waiter your number.”
She looks bored. “I already did that a half-hour ago.”
Right. “Go lick the toilet seat.”
The more I want to put the topic to bed, the more they want to resurrect it. I apparently look guilty as hell.
“Do you have his number in your phone right now?” Jordy asks.
At this point, lying is getting me nowhere, so I answer truthfully, hoping the karmic boost will help me out of this. “Yes.”
I shamelessly added it from the company directory the morning before we slept together. I wanted to be sure I had it saved in case he needed to change or cancel our plans. Oh my god, I’m pathetic!
“If you called right now, would he answer?” Hannah asks.
“Yes.”
I know without a shadow of a doubt if I called Hudson, he’d answer.
Jordy claps her hands now, drawing the attention of everyone at our table and the surrounding tables. Management wants us out of here yesterday.
“Let’s call him!” Jordy suggests.
“Let’ssss not.”
I think my Ss will be convincing enough, but not for Jordy. “Oh, we really have to. We have got to let this man know he gave you an orgasm to end all orgasms.”
I’m tipsy enough that I can’t immediately remember why that would be a bad idea. It seems like Hudson should know the truth, right? I’d want to know if I were him.
“Call him! Call him!”
The chant carries around the table until I feel like the entire restaurant is looking at us. I hate all the attention.
“Okay! Oh my god. Stop. I’ll do it if you all just stop.”
I reach into my purse and get my phone. My hand trembles as I try to come up with some excuse to get out of this now that I’ve already agreed to do it. I could say my phone’s dead, but Jordy’s sitting right next to me and she can clearly see it’s alive and kicking.
“You know what? I just realized maybe I don’t have his number.”
“Boo!”
“Don’t be a coward!”
“Call him!”
“You don’t have to,” Hannah tells me from across the table, trying to protect me from her friends. “But if you don’t, I will.”
Some sister-in-law she is!
It takes me longer than normal to figure out how to navigate to my phone’s contact list. The champagne has fully gone to my head, and I laugh as I run through a list of Hs that seems a mile long. “Oh my god, Ms. Higgins! She was my favorite AP art teacher—”
“Don’t get sidetracked!” Jordy snaps.
Finally, I reach Hudson’s name, and without a moment’s hesitation, I press call and hold the phone to my ear. Everyone’s grinning and whispering excitedly as the phone rings…and rings. Oh my god it’s going on forever. Slowly, my initial zing of adrenaline dwindles down to nothing.
I hang up just before it cuts to voicemail. A pang of sadness fills my chest and I try to shake it off, though I know it’s futile.
“There, I tried. He didn’t—”
My phone screen lights up with an incoming call.
Hudson.
I feel lighter than air. I might float away. His name alone sends a fissure of excitement down my spine.
“Oh shit! He’s calling back,” Jordy tells the table. “Shh! Shh!”