The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

number three.  My friend Hallie came while I was deep into that one.  “Where’s Gunnar?” I asked her, and her eyes got big.  She moved away and motioned for me to be quieter—sometimes, when I had some alcohol in me, I lost my sense of appropriate volume.  “Where’s Gunnar,” I whispered, and she stepped back and leaned in to hear me.

“He’s skipping this one.  He had to drive Marley over to a babysitting job.  For Ben Matthews,” Hallie told me.

“Marley’s watching Tessa tonight?”  For as long as I’d known them, Ben hadn’t needed a sitter other than me because he hadn’t ever gone out.

Hallie nodded, and then she pointed across the room.  “See?”

My old friend Holland had opened the front door and new guests came in, some girls I knew from high school and behind them, two tall, dark-haired guys, one smiling and the other frowning as he looked around my condo.

“Gunnar says that his brother is an ass,” Hallie noted, as we watched Kayden stare at Holland’s boobs.  To be fair, the top she was wearing barely covered her nipples, so there was a lot to see.

“I’ll go say hello,” I told Hallie, but she grabbed my arm.

“How much have you had to drink?”

“A mojito or two.  Or three.”  Or four.  I couldn’t remember.

She winced and covered her ears.  “How much did you eat before you poured the rum into your stomach?”

I laughed, because, food?  Who did that?  “Be right back!” I said, and went over to Ben.  My ankle was so much better, I barely felt it as I walked.  I barely even felt my legs.  It was pretty awesome.

“Hi, Ben!” I hugged him, happy to see him out.  “I didn’t know you were coming!”

He looked surprised by my greeting, to say the least, and it made me laugh.

“Do I get a hug hello?” Kayden asked, and held out his arms.

I shook my head.  “No, thanks.  Let’s get you drinks.  Not a mojito for you, Kayden.  You could have club soda.”  I saw anger flash across Kayden’s face, and he turned and headed off into the crowd.  I looked at Ben.  “What are you doing here?”

“Is it ok with you?  I thought you invited both of us.”

“I didn’t think you’d really come.  I’ll get you a mojito.”  I glided back across my living room to where my old friend Dustin was mixing them up for me at the kitchen island.

“Want another one, Gaby?” he asked me, and I thought, why not?  I grabbed two cold glasses and kissed his cheek to say thanks and because I loved Dustin.  He was such a great guy, and I told him so.

“Um, thanks…are you ok, Gaby?”

My eyes filled with tears.  Tears of love, I was pretty sure, over his concern, or tears of happiness, because this was a super-awesome party.  “I’m great.  Feeling great.”

“You’re still limping a lot,” Ben said when I handed him his mojito.  He held it without tasting it.

“No, I’m not!”  I sipped delicately, and the glass suddenly had only half of what it had held before.  Ben was staring at me, too, and his frown was bigger.  “Why did you come, if you’re going to be a party pooper?”

“A party pooper?  Are we five?  And why are you talking so loudly?”

He certainly was a party pooper!  He sounded annoyed out of his mind.  I took another little sip and rattled the ice at the bottom of the empty glass.  “I’m not talking loud!”  Actually, my own ears rang a little after I said those words.  I modulated.  “You know, there are plenty of people here who are interested in me.  In talking to me, I mean, and having a drink with me.  They think I’m more than hair.”

“What?  I can’t hear you when you whisper.”

I tossed the hair that he thought I had so much of.  “I’m out,” I announced.  By mistake some strands went into his mojito and drizzled lime juice and white rum down my back as I flew off on my two good ankles.  I went to mingle instead of dealing with the party pooper, hanging out with some friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while.  That was too bad, I realized, because they were so fun!  I was having a great time.

From the glimpses I caught of Kayden, he was, too.  At least, he was talking to a bunch of different women and was surrounded by people.  There were a lot of football fans here and he was a hit, even if he had been traded away from the Woodsmen and word had leaked out last week that the Rustlers had released him from the team for unspecified reasons.

Ben sat in a chair, after moving a lot of pillows out of it to make room for his broad body.  He and Hallie looked like they were having a heart to heart, ignoring everyone else in the crowd around them.  It made sense that she would stick with just one conversation for the night because Hallie wasn’t much of a party person.  It made me even happier that she had come, even without Gunnar.  It made me want to hug her.  I was walking across the room to do that when I saw Holland let in more people.

I stopped so suddenly that I sloshed liquid out of my glass and onto the floor.  One of those new guests was Shephard Sterling’s daughter, Francie, the youngest one.  She came in with guy I’d met one summer while waitressing.  That summer, I’d been in love with the repairman who worked on our soft-serve ice cream machines and had the tattoo “1985” on his hand, the year he’d gotten out of prison, which had scared the guy who was with Francie now but had excited me…oh, gravy.  Francie Sterling was here?  Shep’s daughter was in my house?

I felt a wave of dizziness, so bad that I stumbled and had to grab at a side table.  I knocked off a metal sculpture of two intertwined hearts and