Page 2 of Pretend You're Mine
Taking another wild look around and finding what appeared to be some signs of life in the distance didn’t reassure me much. All my big hopes and promises to myself, and would you look at me now. Lost, in the middle of nowhere with a dead phone, and one big fat crazy mystery of a last night hanging over my head.
I tugged at my hideous ring once more, giving it a good yank, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge.
Xander had to be crazy. No matter how drunk I was, no matter how sexually and fun-repressed I’d been this past year and a half, there was no way, no way in hell I’d do that. Not to mention that there was no way he would.
Although I was no man expert, I knew enough to see when a guy was really into me. Xander hadn’t looked at me like he was really into me. He’d looked at me like I was the answer to a puzzle, if that made any sense at all.
You didn’t get married for practicality, not in this day and age. And not when you were a hot rich guy. Unless…
I shoved the thought out of my mind. In the hazy waters of my memory, last night was far out at sea, and I couldn’t trust that whatever I was thinking now was real or not. And there couldn’t be worse timing with Christmas just around the corner.
Merry Christmas Naomi, you got yourself a husband.
As it turned out, the first signs of civilization was a Subway. It was a squat afterthought of a building with a fallen-down overflowing garbage bin out front, but I was in no position to complain.
“Huh?” the guy who looked to be all of twelve years old behind the counter said when I made my request.
I took a breath. “My phone died and I need to call a friend. Is there any way I could use your phone? I’ll buy a sub or whatever.”
He scratched his freckled mouth and, when his hand was removed, there was a smile on his face. “Alrighty, yeah. Why not.” He pointed behind him and, taking his as an ‘ok’ to go there, I did.
Please pick up, please pick up, I prayed as I dialed the number. If Teren was one thing, it was glued at the hip to his phone. But still. The phone rang once, twice – what the hell was I going to do if he didn’t pick up? I guessed I could always call a taxi. Three rings, and then, “Hello?”
His voice was suspicious, already annoyed, probably pegging this unknown number for some ambitious telemarketer.
“It’s me,” I said. “Sorry, my phone died.”
“Naomi? What the hell? Where the hell are you?”
I winced. My headache was still pounding in full force, and Teren’s piercing voice wasn’t helping matters.
“Where did you go last night? I went to the bathroom while you were talking to this guy and next thing I know you were gone. I thought you were kidnapped or something!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Here’s the thing, I’m not really sure. But please Teren, just pick me up and I can explain.”
He gave a loud sigh. “Fine, fine. Where are you then?”
I looked over to the cashier who was pretending not to eavesdrop but was clearly eavesdropping. “What’s the address of this place?”
“243 Cherrytree Drive,” he said without missing a beat.
I repeated the address to my brother and he snorted. “What, did you marry some Romanian prince or something?”
A cough choked out of me as the pounding of my headache intensified. “Just come. Please.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.”
Although, of course, he wasn’t. I paced and paced and finally took refuge in a cookie and waited some more. It wasn’t Teren’s fault, though. He was on the opposite side of LA, so it would take him at least thirty-five minutes to battle traffic to get to where I was.
When he did pull up, not caring what kind of crazy desperate person I looked like, I ran out there as fast as I could.
Teren stared at me as if I was some stray from the street with a bad perm who had just propositioned him. Finally, he said, “Your shirt is on backwards.”
Startled, I glanced down. Yup, the kind of tag-sticking-out backwards that would’ve been completely humiliating if it weren’t for the morning I’d just had. I grabbed his car charger and plugged it into my dead phone.
I let out a long sigh, then he said, “What the hell Naomi? Last night I kept calling and texting. I was really worried.”
“I’m sorry. I honestly don’t even remember what happened.”
Too bad I couldn’t say the same for this morning. Good morning, wife.
Teren still looked like I’d run over his favorite teacup Chihuahua. Clearly more damage control was needed.
“Listen Teren,” I said. “I messed up and I’m sorry. I think I blacked out. “
