The Taking (Seven Deadly Sins #3)(45)
Author: Erin McCarthy

That had never occurred to Regan. “You think so? Why would he be coming over without calling first?”

“At midnight? Hello! Fuck-fest. He was totally going to do the whole, I was walking by, your light was on, thought I’d say hi, blah, blah, blah. Boom, you’re in the bedroom.”

“The way your mind works disturbs me,” Jen said, sipping her hurricane. She adjusted her white tank top for the tenth time. “I shouldn’t have worn this shirt. My boobs look huge.”

“They do,” Regan admitted.

“Massive,” Chris agreed.

They both started laughing.

“Thanks,” Jen said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I think that’s a bachelor party over there. They all keep looking at me and my boobs.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Oh, whatever. It’s only ten o’clock and they’re halfway to shit-faced already. By the time we leave here they’ll all be vomiting in trash cans so you don’t need to worry that they’ll be hitting on you.”

“There’s a beautiful image.” Regan curled her lip. “Can we get back to me please? What should I do?”

“Um, nothing.” Chris pointed his swizzle stick at her. “Chalk it up to a good time and move on. If you call him, you’ll look needy.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” She knew it was the truth, and the absolute last thing in the universe she wanted to be perceived as was needy.

“I would call him,” Jen said. “He probably has no idea if you’re receptive to the idea of seeing him again or not. He may be thinking the same things you are because you didn’t give him any clear signal you wanted to see him again. What harm is there in calling him?”

“Don’t listen to her! If you call, he’s going to slap you in the ‘never want to talk to her again’ box. He’ll think you’re all about a relationship. Whereas if you don’t call and you bump into him three months from now, you can totally have sex with him again.”

That was so not the way Regan thought; she had to repeat Chris’s sentence in her head twice to make sure she understood it. How would zero contact result in future sex? It boggled the mind.

“You’re seeing him next week at the party,” Jen said, slapping her drink back on the wrought iron table. “Oh, my God, he’s not going to cancel, is he? That will screw my whole entertainment schedule up.”

“I hope not. I mean, he would have told me, right?” Though she didn’t know why she would assume he would tell her. What did she really know about him, after all?

Nothing, and she was annoyed with herself for spending the whole damn day glancing at her cell phone every ten minutes to see if he had called. Which he hadn’t.

“Probably.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.” Regan fiddled with the rim of her glass. “So let me ask you this. Assuming he never calls me again, what does that mean? What went wrong? I mean, I thought the sex was, well, great. Did he not like the sex?”

“That’s not what it means at all. It just means you had great sex, but he’s not looking for a relationship. It’s not like you were dating, you know. So if he liked the sex, he’ll probably call you in a few weeks and see what you’re doing.”

“A few weeks?” Great. Fourteen days of wondering if she had sucked in bed.

“And keep in mind that if he does call you it will be for sex. You’ve established yourself as a booty call since you slept with him so fast after no actual dating.”

Regan knew Chris was right, but she didn’t want to hear it said out loud. “Do we have to use the term booty call? Can’t we just say we’re two adults who wanted to have sex with each other?”

“Call it what you want”

“Regan, do you want a relationship with him?” Jen asked, looking skeptical. “I mean, it’s only been four months since you left Beau. I don’t think it’s such a hot idea to jump right back into something serious.”

“That wasn’t my intention.” She didn’t think. Hell, she didn’t know what her intentions had been. She had just known she wanted Felix, plain and simple.

“Then why do you care if he calls or not?”

“Because I don’t want to be rejected. I had enough of that in my marriage: ”

Her friends made those faces, the ones that showed you had revealed too much. They both instantly went into sympathetic.

“Sweetie.”

“Oh, Regan.”

She waved her hand. “No, it’s fine. It is. That’s why I left after fourteen months. And no, I don’t see myself in a relationship with Felix, but no, I don’t want to be blown off either. Who would?”

“It’s not being blown off,” Chris insisted. “It’s casual sex. We had this talk … I knew this wasn’t an outfit you could wear.”

“I guess you were right.” She drained her wine. “So what do I do?”

“Nothing. You do nothing.”

“Okay, I’ve got to agree with him now,” Jen said, playing with her caramel-colored hair like she could somehow get it to cover her cle**age. “I think maybe you should wait awhile before you wade into sex and dating. You’ll either wind up in a rebound relationship or in a string of meaningless hookups.”

Just when she thought she couldn’t feel any worse, her friends managed to make her feel just that way. “Thanks. This has been very helpful. Just resign myself to celibacy for an indefinite period of time.”

“Just a few months. Get your head back on straight:” Jen might have a point. God only knew Regan’s head was not on straight.

She was seeing reptiles in her bed and heading out for balcony strolls she didn’t remember.

It was better to focus on decorating her house, working, and spending time with her friends and family.

So why did that feel so incredibly unsatisfying?

“Where’s the waiter?” she asked. “I need a refill.”

Two hours later, Chris and Jen walked her home on their way to the parking garage to retrieve their cars. They had managed to have a great time, despite Jen’s fears coming true and the bachelor party hitting on her, and they were navigating the sidewalks of the Quarter, joking and laughing with each other.

Until they got to the corner of Ursuline and Regan came to a complete stop.

“What’s the matter?” Jen asked.

“He’s sitting on the stoop across from my house,” Regan whispered, pulling them back into the shadow of the building.