Closing her eyes, she nodded as she leaned back into him. I felt a tug at my chest, and lowered my gaze, feeling like I shouldn’t be gawking at them like a creeper. The love they felt for one another was palpable, the same with Avery and Cam. It was good to be surrounded by such happy couples, but sometimes it was hard not to be a wee bit jealous. I felt crappy for feeling that way, but it was hard to imagine myself where Teresa and Avery were. Well, I mean I could imagine it, but that was all it was. A fantasy at this point.

I peeked over at Brock. He was checking out his phone, his jaw clenched, and I felt my stomach take an Olympic dive. He’d been out of the office most of Thursday and today, in various meetings, so I hadn’t seen much of him since that afternoon in my office, when he made his promise—a promise I didn’t fully understand.

He’d picked me up this morning, using the same excuse he’d said before, and I was a bit nervous about the drive home. Hell, the drive anywhere at this point, because he hadn’t been very talkative this morning or the few times I’d seen him.

“Everything look good?” Brock asked, lowering his phone.

Teresa and Avery practically exploded into a chorus of enthusiastic yeses, and a small grin curved up the corner of Brock’s lips while both husbands smiled more broadly.

“Good.” Brock glanced over at me, his expression unreadable. “Then let’s hit the road.”

* * *

Staring at what I believed was my second shot of Jameson, I tried to figure out how I got to the point where my belly was full, the blood in my veins was warm, and all the muscles in my body were decidedly relaxed.

It had started with wine.

Squirreled away in the small restaurant-bar, we had commandeered a large booth in front of the glass windows, and Teresa who obviously couldn’t drink had somehow weaseled me into drinking for her. Something about living vicariously through me.

Now, I was typically a “one glass of wine and done” type of girl. Very rarely did I drink two . . . or four, and especially not around other people. The thing with getting buzzed, you tend to forget things about yourself, and while that could be awesome, I liked to be spatially aware of my surroundings . . . and my weird mouth.

But before I knew it, and through no fault of my own, I drank a couple of glasses of wine, and I think one shot, and I wasn’t thinking about my mouth or the scars, or the conversation Brock and I had had Wednesday, or the night Brock broke my heart and I ended up with said scars. I wasn’t really thinking about any of that nonsense, and it was wonderful.

I should drink more often.