Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

delicate skin of my collarbone, and he wore the lingering scent of tequila like a fine cologne. It suited him very well. All at once, I didn’t care about any of those other things I was preoccupied with. Not Cole and Holly, not Lydia’s homelessness, not that Darcy guy. In a haze of onion rings and tequila, I wondered why any of those things mattered at all. I was having fun.

The small escape from my cares was too short lived, and I crashed into sober awareness with the abrupt appearance of Denny. He flew to me with a whoosh so swift, he didn’t pause or halt his steps as he pulled me by the arm towards the back of the restaurant.

“Lydia threw up all over the stage,” he said with a determined gait. “I was able to get her to the restroom, but you’d better check on her.”

Wonderful!

“Where’s Holly?” I questioned.

He chuckled. “Are you kidding? She left with my uncle about an hour ago.”

“Oh.”

I was in Latin dreamland longer than I’d realized.

“He left me his credit card,” said Denny. “He’s gonna be livid when he gets the cleaning bill.”

I found Lydia in the first stall, huddled over the toilet. She was a shade of pale puce and strands of her hair were plastered against her face. One of her spaghetti straps hung off her shoulder, causing her dress to sag low on her tiny boobs.

“You okay, hon?” I asked, stroking the hair from her neck.

“You’re holding my hair as I hurl into the toilet,” she managed to say with some humor.

“That’s what friends do.” I smiled.

She looked like she was going to say something else endearingly sappy but gagged again and let more party evidence spill into the toilet.

“How much did you have to drink?” I asked but thought better of it a moment later. “Never mind.”

It didn’t matter at this point. I needed to get her home—hopefully without damage to the interior of my Volvo. I stayed with her until I deemed it safe to move her. Jorge and Denny met us at the door, carrying both our purses. I would have made a cheeky joke had I not been determined to get Lydia the Eddie Flagrante out of there.

Denny was a little more anxious than I was. “Let’s go before there’s more damage,” he cried. “The busboy is giving us the stink eye.”

“I don’t blame him,” I said with sympathy. I’d never had to deal with drunk customers at the lodge, but I’d cleaned my share of messes. Mostly idiots playing with the ketchup or Tabasco. It gave me an unhealthy aversion to condiments.

Jorge gathered Lydia in his arms and carried her out of the pub. We made it to my car without incident, and he gently lowered her into the backseat. “I better ride with you,” he said. “To make sure she’s okay.”

“I can handle it, really,” I protested.

“Are you going to carry her into the house?” he argued. “Besides, I’m a little too tipsy to drive.”

He climbed into the seat beside Lydia without another word and cradled her head on his lap.

“I feel like a dip-head,” said Denny. “I didn’t even realize she had that much to drink.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I would have hugged him, but I suspected traces of Lydia’s vomit got on my clothing. “Are you okay to drive?”

“I am now,” he blurted. “Nothing like a little drama to kill the buzz.”

We parted with a nod and an awareness of the new friendship an experience like that produced. I drove home with these thoughts in the forefront of my mind. New friends already forming a tender attachment to my heart just because we spent an evening laughing over margaritas and bad karaoke. I wondered if Jane was having as much fun with her new acquaintances. I imagined her meeting Bing at a bar, maybe one of those posh martini bars. And wouldn’t it be a riot to be joined by Will and Caroline?

Gag me.

I wished her well, but as long as Bing relied on such meddling friends, she’d always be under their scrutiny. There was no sign of her when we arrived at the apartment.

Jorge helped me get Lydia situated on the couch. She was totally passed out, but I put a barf bucket next to her just in case. I wasn’t interested in losing my security deposit. Before I even noticed what he was doing, Jorge had disrobed down to his boxers. I almost leapt into the barf bucket.

“It’s not a good party unless you’re covered in vomit.” He shrugged, holding his soiled clothes. “Do you mind if I wash these in your bathtub?”

“Oh! Of course.”

I looked down at my own clothing and noticed patches of caked-on residue. “I’ll get you some detergent. And a robe.”

The evening had played out just a little differently in my imagination when I was preparing to go out. Jorge was in my living room, exposing more skin than should be legal, but my fantasies never included a barf fest. I consoled myself with a quick shower and fresh pajamas while Jorge washed his clothes in the guest bathroom, and when he met me in the kitchen with the Hello Kitty robe I lent him, I had a pot of boiling water on the stove.

“You look dashing as ever,” I teased.

“It suits me,” he said, modeling the robe. “I think I’ll keep it.”

“Sorry, the laundry room is locked at this hour,” I apologized. “Tea or hot cocoa?”

“Cocoa, if you have milk. My mom used to make it with milk.”

Used to. That didn’t escape my notice, but I didn’t want to ask after the night we’d had. Instead, I continued to tease him, offering him my fluffy slippers to match the robe and suggesting we give each other manicures while watching chick flicks. We joked over cocoa and laughed louder than we ought to with a sleeping reprobate just a few feet away on my couch. She was so barbecue, she never stirred an inch. After some time, he