One Night With His Ex

“What brought this on?” Helena asked. “Is it because things didn’t work out with Jackson?”

“You let Jackson go?” Zuri asked. “I’m out of town for a few days and I missed everything. When did this happen? You two looked pretty cozy at the engagement party.”

“Ugh. We were but then we decided we’d be better off as friends,” Hadley said. Maybe she’d had too much tequila. She should never have brought this up.

“Friends... He friend-zoned you? Dude better check himself. It’s not like we don’t all remember he used to be a total nerd.”

“No, it was the other way around,” Hadley protested.

“He’s hot now,” Helena said, signaling the waiter and ordering another plate of nachos and margaritas for the four of them.

“He is,” Zuri said. “I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed.”

“No one would,” Helena added. “Except for Had.”

“I didn’t do that. Here comes Josie,” she said. Thank God. She was tired of discussing how she let Jackson slip away and she definitely didn’t want to talk about Mauricio, who was over by the pool table laughing with his brothers. She couldn’t help watching him as he lined up a shot. Of course, he had to wear those skintight Levi’s tonight, making matters worse.

“I think we know why it didn’t work with Jackson,” Zuri said.

“What?” she asked, turning back to her friends, her sister and Manu, who were all watching her stare at Mo and his brothers.

“Y’all are crazy. So, Manu, are you joining us?”

Everyone turned their attention to Manu and Josie, and Hadley forced herself to focus on the nachos and margarita, but a part of her was listening for Mauricio’s laugh. Which was the last thing she needed to be doing right now. She was moving on...except now that she’d danced with him, she wasn’t sure she had.

Helena smiled and laughed with her friends, and for the first time since she discovered the money missing from the wedding account felt like herself again. Her mom had told her that marriage was a million little compromises. But Helena had never really been someone who could just let things go. She was a control freak when it came to money, though she didn’t know why. Their family had always had more than enough when she and Hadley were growing up.

But she’d never been someone who could waste money just because she had it and that’s what this thing with Mal felt like.

“You are looking way too serious,” Hadley said, handing her a shot of tequila. The nachos were long gone. Josie was on the dance floor pressed against Manu, and Zuri had decided to see if she could tempt one of the astronaut trainees from NASA into having a bit of fun.

That left the Everton sisters, who were sitting at the table like two spinsters.

“Can’t help it,” she said, doing the shot and then turning the glass upside down on the tabletop.

“Don’t worry, I’m handling Mom,” Had said.

Helena smiled and nodded at her sister. She was the eldest and she had always taken her job as the big sister seriously. She wasn’t about to cry on Hadley’s shoulder because she didn’t know where Malcolm was tonight or where that money had gone. She was going to keep it together, keep her smile in place and fix whatever was going on with Mal privately.

“Thanks for that,” Helena said.

“Be right back. Want another shot?” Hadley asked.

“Water would be better,” she said.

Hadley nodded and danced her way to the bar as Mauricio came over to the table. “Hey, Helena, I wanted to let you know that I haven’t been able to get anything out of Malcolm. He’s shut me down every time I tried to bring up finances.”

She sighed. It figured. “Thanks for trying. Do you know where he is tonight?”

Mauricio tipped his head to the side and shook it. “No. I thought he was here with you.”

“No. He texted me earlier to say he was busy,” Helena said. “Do you think he’s having an affair?”

Mo put his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t believe he would do that. He loves you and whatever this is, it’s not that.”

It was somehow easier to talk to Mauricio than her sister because she knew that he wouldn’t talk to anyone in her family about what was going on.

“She’s taken,” Hadley said, coming up and putting a large glass of water in front of Helena.

“I’m trying to reassure your sister that I’m not going to screw up things for her wedding,” Mauricio said.

She didn’t know what had happened, but it was obvious to Helena that there was still a spark between these two, no matter how hard they tried to move on from each other. Thinking that she was casting a pall over the evening with her Malcolm worries, she nudged Mo toward her sister. “You are going to have to dance together at the reception. Better practice.”

Mauricio gave her a hard look, which surprised her. He seemed so easygoing when it came to her sister but it was clear that he wasn’t as cool as he pretended to be.

“Sure. Why not?” Hadley said.

Mauricio took Hadley’s hand and led her to the dance floor. She could handle herself despite what their mother thought. Helena sipped her water and turned her attention to her phone. She clicked on the friend finder app but didn’t see Malcolm’s icon. She was starting to worry that he was having second thoughts about getting married.

She sighed and kept refreshing the app to try to make him appear, but he was still unavailable. Waiting had never really been one of her strong suits so she finally texted him.

Where the hell are you?

She saw that the message was delivered and kept staring at the screen as if that was going to make him respond to her. But nothing.

What was going on with Malcolm? They’d always been on the same page with their relationship. She’d counted herself lucky that she’d fallen in love with a man who wanted the same things out of life that she did, but now she didn’t know if she’d been fooling herself.

That’s what Hadley had said about Mauricio when they’d broken up last year, that she’d fooled herself into believing he was a different man than he really was. As Helena shoved her phone into her handbag and looked up at her sister, dancing way too close to the man she’d said she was over, she realized that they all did that. Hadley was just like her, fooling herself into believing she was in control of her emotions when in reality they were all prisoners to them.

Her phone pinged and she scrambled to get it out of her purse. It was Malcolm. Finally! His phone had died and he was at home waiting for her.

Four (#u74a762a5-7924-513c-abe8-b573114a86f4)

The Bull Pit crowd had thinned out, but Hadley and Mo still alternated between doing shots and dancing. As the night wore on, she couldn’t remember why she’d been so mad at him.

When the DJ announced last call and then played Eric Church’s sensual song “Like a Wrecking Ball,” it seemed natural to press herself against him, her hands on his lean hips, her head on his shoulder as he held her and they swayed along to the music. She looked up at him and he was watching her.

He lowered his head but she ducked away from him.

“Not feeling it?”

“Yes and no,” she said.

“Should we talk about this?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know we were on a break, I mean, I get that. But why text me how much you wish I was there with you and then hook up with Marnie?”

He shook his head and stepped back. She had thought she’d dealt with everything that happened but when he’d almost kissed her, she had wanted to cry. For most of her adult life she’d believed Mo would be her man for the rest of her life and then...well, he’d hurt her more deeply than she wanted to admit.