Page 44 of Rescuing Mary

Going out had been a great idea. Spending time with his buddies in their usual hangout felt like putting on an old familiar coat. He liked it. Except for the bar bitch waiting nearby. He could practically feel her stripping him with her eyes. If she thought he would be taking her home later, she’d be extremely disappointed.

She could go home with one of the others. Maybe Coach would like her. He liked chicks with dark hair.

“That fucking bitch,” Mary said between clenched teeth.

Rayne, Casey, Wendy, Harley, and Mary were sitting on the other side of the bar. They’d gotten there before the men and, so far, had kept their presence low key.

But Mary knew that was about to end.

“Easy, Mary,” Rayne soothed. “Remember, we talked about this. You don’t want Truck’s first—well, second impression to be of you rolling around on the floor fighting.”

“She touched him,” Mary bit out. “She knows he’s taken, and she fucking touched him. And her boobs are about to fall out of her bra. It’s disgusting.”

“He doesn’t look all that interested,” Casey observed. “I mean, she’s practically throwing herself at him, and he hasn’t looked at her again.”

“He made it more than clear he was with me at the bank that day,” Mary went on. One of her hands was clenched into a tight fist on her lap and the other clutched her bottle of beer.

“She either has balls of steel to come on to him after the smackdown you told us Truck gave her,” Wendy said, “or she somehow heard about his amnesia and is trying to take advantage.”

“How would she have heard about it? It’s not like it was in the papers or anything,” Mary said. “But whichever’s the case, it makes her a bigger bitch than I already thought she was if she’s trying to get with my man. I was nice last time. Wasn’t I nice at the bank, Rayne?” Mary asked.

“You were,” her friend immediately agreed. “I was kinda surprised when you told me what happened, actually. But then again, you said that Truck told her in no uncertain terms he was with you and that was that.”

Mary inwardly seethed. She took a sip of her beer and tried to calm herself. It was bad enough the paramedic had dared to hit on Truck when they were at the bank and she was supposed to be working, but to go up to him bold as brass tonight, and hit on him a second time, was low. Really low.

“So, what’s the plan tonight?” Harley asked. “Is there a plan?”

The four women all looked at Mary. “The plan is for me to introduce myself to Truck and flirt with him.”

Casey’s eyes got big. “Are you gonna sleep with him?”

Mary almost choked on her beer. After swallowing, she said, “No. Jeez. I’m just gonna flirt with him and see if I can catch his interest. I hadn’t really thought about anything else yet. God.”

“She hasn’t slept with him yet,” Rayne informed the others.

Mary whipped her head around and stared at her best friend incredulously. “Rayne!”

“What?” she asked not so innocently.

“I really don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Look, if you can’t talk to your friends, who can you talk to?”

Mary scrubbed a hand over her face and stared down at the scarred table. “It’s embarrassing.”

Rayne covered her hand with her own and said, “No, it’s not.”

“We’re married. It’s not normal,” Mary insisted.

“You were sick,” Harley said. “When were you supposed to have sex? Between bouts of barfing? How about when your chest was so burnt from the radiation your skin was peeling off? Then?”

Mary stared at her in shock. She loved Harley, but the woman wasn’t usually so forward. She was more apt to keep her nose buried in her computer screen writing code for the video games she loved so much. How did she even know that much about breast cancer treatments, anyway?

“Rayne talked to us,” Wendy explained. “She wanted us to understand why you did what you did. It’s not a big deal.”

It wasn’t a big deal? It was a huge fucking deal! She was going to tell everyone eventually, but she wanted it to be on her terms and when she was ready. Mary turned accusing eyes to Rayne. The other woman held up her hands in capitulation, but she was grinning and didn’t seem the least bit repentant for sharing such intimate things with the others.

“It’s not a big deal that you guys haven’t slept together yet,” Rayne said. “Besides, we all know you’re not a one-night stand kind of woman.”