Page 105 of Nobody's Girl

They went into the bedroom they’d shared forever and went to their closets to get out of their clothes and change into their pajamas. Each of them had a small twin-sized bed they crawled under the blankets of and all let out sighs as they lay back in their beds.

“Why do men have to be so shallow?” Jess asked her sisters as if they could possibly answer her question. They both seemed just as heartbroken as she was.

“God made some of them that way, Jess,” Kel answered. “They’re not all that way. Only the ones we know.”

“I think meeting a man at a bar and thinking he can be a good guy is the wrong thing to do,” Cait said. “It’s like going to a snake farm to pick the best pet for you. It’s foolish. They’re all snakes. There’s not a good one in the whole bunch.”

“You’re right,” Jess said. “You know, we’re fools to have even given those dudes a chance in hell. We should make a pact never to date or even consider messing with any man we ever meet in a bar anywhere in the world.”

Cait wiggled down in her bed to get comfortable, a thing she hadn’t been since she left Phoenix’s strong arms. “I think you’re right, Jess. We’ll have to help each other when we see one of us falling for a jackass’ lines.”

“I’ve got your backs,” Jess said.

“Me too,” Kel added.

“And I have yours too,” Cait said. “Let’s try to get some sleep now and put this terrible night behind us all.”

“Do you think there’s a chance they’ll go back to the pub tomorrow night?” Kel asked. “We all have to work tomorrow night and the next. What should we do if they come in looking for us?”

“Let them know that we know about their bet and fucked them over before they could fuck us over,” Cait said with a laugh.

“I don’t think we should be that damn honest with them,” Jess said. “I’d like Griff to hurt a bit. Just like I am. It’s amazing how quickly he got under my skin and made my heart ache. No one has ever made my heart hurt like this.”

“So we keep the fact we know their game to ourselves, then? If they come in, I mean, which I doubt they will,” Cait asked her sisters.

Kel agreed, “I think Jess is right. Let them think we ditched them for no other reason than we were playing them. Let that sink into their frozen hearts. Maybe it’ll thaw them out for the next females who come along in their lives.”

“Maybe you two are right,” Cait said. “But if I may be truthful, I’d like to say that if you two weren’t involved, I’d have helped Phoenix win his bet.”

“Thanks for the support, Cait,” Kel said. “And I knew that already.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jess agreed. “But thanks for staying with us. It’s not cool to play that way with all women. Some are fragile.”

“And some are young and inexperienced,” Kel said. “Men should know more about the women they play games with before going forward with them. I let Ethan know how I’d been hurt and he went ahead with his plan to try to win the bet.”

“I let Griffin know about me too,” Jess said. “And he too went on with the bet. I gave him up until the very end to change his mind. He didn’t do it. So I hope he has terrible dreams and finds himself missing me like crazy.”

The others laughed and agreed in unison, “Me too!”

As hard as it was, the young women closed their eyes and tried not to think of the handsome men who must be waiting outside the pub, wondering what was taking their women so damn long to join them in their sexual endeavors.

Chapter 12

In three different cabs sat the men who were sure they were all going to get lucky; it was just a matter of who got to who first. Each one had a strong opinion that it would be he who struck gold before the others.

They texted one another with taunts and jibes meant to demoralize their opponents. And it was Ethan who first asked the others if they thought thirty minutes was a bit too long for the women to be freshening up.

Getting out of the cabs, the men met at the entrance to the pub to find it was locked. They walked around the building to find the back parking lot was empty and the rear entrance was also locked.

“They ditched us!” Phoenix said as his face fell. “Why would they all three run off?”

“I have no idea,” Ethan said as he pulled out his cell. “I have Kel’s number, and I’m damn well going to ask her where the hell she is and go find her ass. She told me point blank that she’d go with me to a hotel.”

“Jess told me that too,” Griffin said with kind of a weepy tone to his deep voice. “I can’t understand this at all.”

“Cait was all over me. There was never any doubt that she was as into it as I was,” Phoenix moaned as they went back to where the cabs were waiting on them.