Taken

“Hey.” She stood, slinging her purse over her shoulder and looking at me, considering. “How would you like to actually do a girls’ night? I can cook. We can rent a chick flick. You can borrow that nail polish. What do you say?” I hesitated and then shrugged. “Why not? I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Gee, I’m glad I’m a last resort.”

We both grinned.

* * * *

It was pouring outside, and by the time we’d rented

Unfaithful

, it had developed into a full-fledged summer storm. We were both shivering and wet, and Sarah turned on the heater in her car. I pressed my hands against the vents in an attempt to warm them.

“Feels like summer is officially over.” Sarah’s teeth chattered as she pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex.

“Sarah, your lips are blue.”

“Yours are purple.” Her eyes lingered on my mouth for a moment and then she met my eyes and smiled. “Ready to run for it?” It was raining so hard the windshield was a waterfall.

“On three.”

We counted together, opening the doors and running toward her apartment.

Sarah stopped to slip off her heels, hopping as she did it, and that put her ahead of me.

She beat me to the door and we both stood there shivering as she fumbled with her keys. The warmth of the apartment felt good, and I set the movie on the table near the door.

“Come on.” Sarah unbuttoned her wet blouse, heading toward bathroom. “Let’s get out of these and put them in the dryer.” I followed, hesitating only a moment before pulling off my wet Coldplay t-shirt. She threw her blouse in the dryer, turning to grab my shirt.

“Jeans too.” She turned her back to me. “Will you unzip me?” I unzipped her skirt and she slid it off and threw it in. I unbuttoned my jeans, rocking them down my hips.

They were wet and came off hard. I toed off my shoes and threw my socks and jeans in with the rest of the clothes. She turned it on and smiled brightly at me. There were curly, wet strands of blonde hair stuck to her cheeks. “They’ll be toasty warm by the time we’re done with dinner. How’s pasta sound?”

“Great.” I followed her out of the bathroom.

Sarah started a fire in the living room in the gas fireplace near the sofa, and she made me sit there with a glass of wine. I wasn’t much of a drinker-hadn’t even gone out to celebrate my drinking-age birthday the year before. Sarah, I figured, was thirty-something-I wasn’t completely sure of this, but it was my best guesstimate.

“This will warm you up in no time.” She headed back to the kitchen.

I watched her go and realized I was sitting there in a bra and panties. It was very warm in her apartment, and Sarah didn’t seem uncomfortable with our state of undress as she puttered around the kitchen, preparing dinner. I could watch if I turned sideways on the couch and put my legs up, so I did.

“Can I help?”

She shook her damp, blonde curls. “Nope. I’m fine.”

“So…what’s the deal with you and David?” I couldn’t fathom her rejection of him.

“You can’t deny he’s a total hottie.”

“He is, isn’t he?” She smiled, stirring the pasta. “Well, for one, he’s divorced.

Hard to trust a guy who made a go of it and failed, you know?” Ouch. Harsh. But that was Sarah — no one else we worked with could stand her. I was the only one who could tolerate her caustic remarks, even when they were directed at me.

“And, well…he works for me.” Sarah shrugged, putting something together in another pot. “And you know how Don harps about work relationships.”

“What about Chad and Lynn?” I snorted, knowing Don, our “big boss,” looked the other way a lot. “They’re permanently lip-locked and they work together.”

“Oh, them!” She waved a dismissing hand over the pasta pot as she blew on it, keeping it from bubbling over. “They’re on the same level, you know? It’s just not comparable.”

I sipped at my wine, which was almost gone and Sarah came to refill it.

“Hey!” I laughed. The fire was warming me outside, and the wine was warming me inside. I felt flushed. “You trying to get me drunk?”

“Might do you some good.” She tipped the bottle a little further, filling my glass almost to the top. I just rolled my eyes, watching her refill her own glass and set the wine on the counter.

“I don’t need to get drunk,” I mumbled into my glass.

“No?” Sarah licked wine off her lips and turned to stir the pasta. The sauce pot next to it had come to a slow-motion boil, splattering red sauce on the white glass surface of the stove. “I think you need something like it.”

“Sure you don’t need my help?” I offered as she slid a lid onto the sauce pot and shimmied it around for a moment before setting it on a back burner, reaching into the cupboard above her head to bring down a colander without even looking. I thought she was brave to cook in so little clothing.

“I got it,” she insisted, dipping a fork into the noodles and picking one carefully off the tines. “And don’t change the subject.”