Page 376 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

“While sitting down,” Mav added and Mac nodded his agreement.

“Sitting down,” she agreed, although Mav looked skeptical. “Ask the producer. She’s got an intern who literally walks around with a chair for me.”

“I don’t get someone carrying a chair around for me,” Luke said, sounding disappointed. “You must be very special.” He winked and offered her a smile, which I was recognizing as a patented Luke move. Or was it a Shep Barnes move? I hadn’t seen the show to know.

Mac grunted, seemingly satisfied Georgia wasn’t overdoing it. She was barely pregnant, not even out of the first trimester. I had to wonder what he–and the other men–were going to be like when she was about to pop.

Mac asked Theo if he was still attending the Saturday fire training this week, so Georgia turned toward us. She tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned in. “Someone needs to explain why we’re sitting with Dr. Dark and Dangerous.”

“Aspen slept with him,” Mallory whisper-shared.

Georgia’s eyes widened and I took a gulp of wine. Oh, and my nipples hardened.

“If I could drink that, I would.” Georgia pointed at my half-full glass. “Have another sip for me.”

I did.

“I thought he was in a relationship with Lacey Anderson.”

“Who?” I wondered. Luke was in a–

“Gossip. I mean, he’s clearly not in rehab,” Mallory told Georgia.

Rehab?

I whipped my head around and stared at Luke.

“Aspen,” Georgia said with a nudge to my side.

I turned back to her. “Huh?”

“Tell me all about it,” she said.

“Who’s Lacey and what’s this with rehab? Maybe I need to get a TV.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not TV you need, well, maybe that a little, but social media. It’s all fake.”

She waved her manicured hand through the air as if it was no big deal. To me it was. If he was with someone else–

“Rumor is he’s in rehab. We know the truth since he’s sitting right here. He’s not in rehab,” she stated.

“Right,” Mallory said with a snicker. “He’s in Aspen.”

She laughed at her own joke and Bridget had to cover her mouth so she didn’t spit out her wine.

I rolled my eyes. “Then who’s Lacey?”

“Supposedly his girlfriend but she’s the one saying he’s in rehab, so since he’s here with you, it’s all clearly made up.”

I glanced down the table at Luke, whose gaze had been on me. He winked.

“If that doesn’t butter your biscuit,” Georgia breathed. “As us Southern girls say, spill the tea.”

I sighed. “It was better than anything you’re imagining right now,” I said.

“She had orgasms from Shep Barnes–” Mallory began.

“Derek Dashwood–” Georgia corrected to his actor name.

“Luke Graham,” I said, making sure she knew his real name.

“Luke,” Georgia repeated. “I bet they were good ones.”

“While you’re taking home pizzas,” Mallory told Georgia, “Aspen’s taking home Luke. We know she’s a vegetarian, but we have to wonder if she puts some meat in that mouth.”

Georgia gasped.

“Mal!” I grabbed a napkin and threw it at her, laughing and embarrassed.

“You’ve got Sierra,” Georgia said. “She can spend the night if you want some alone time.” If anyone knew what it was like to be cockblocked by a kid, it was Georgia.

I shook my head, then took a huge gulp of wine. “She’s at hockey camp. She left with the team and Dex and Lindy earlier.”

“You’ve got a week off of kid duty, so you have to go for it,” Bridget reminded. “For womankind.”

“Right. Sierra’s at camp,” Georgia said, cocking her head to the side and eyeing me with motherly concern. “You doing okay? Did you cry at drop off? I couldn’t imagine Andy going away for a week like that.”

I shook my head. “Oh, I cried, but not until I got back in my car.” Looking over my shoulder, I called to Otis. “Another bottle!”

He nodded to me from behind the counter.

“She’s going to have the best time,” Bridget said, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. “I don’t know a girl who likes hockey more than her.”

“I know.” Tears came to my eyes, and I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and blotted them away. “My mother would lose her shit over how much of a tomboy Sierra is.”

“Doesn’t like sports?” Bridget asked.

Otis came over with an already-opened bottle of wine.

He knew I needed it STAT, as if I was a doctor on TV and needed it for a triple craniectomy.

I took it from him with a thanks and refilled all three of our glasses.

I could feel the effects of the first finished bottle and was ready to get drunk.

The reminder that Sierra–my baby!–was away and then adding my mother into the mix meant I needed more alcohol.

“The appropriate sports,” I clarified.

“That sounds posh. What’s an appropriate sport? Lacrosse? Squash?” Mallory asked.

“Ballet.”

“Ballet? You did ballet?” Bridget asked. She studied me while she filled her glass. “I can see it because you’re so flexible and I swear I’ve never seen you slouch.”

Otis returned with a basket of garlic knots and set it on the checked cloth between us. “You ladies need some carbs to go with those grapes.”

“Thanks, Otis!” Mallory called as he left, then snagged one and shoved half of it in her mouth and tried to chew. She looked like a squirrel with nuts shoved in her cheeks. “Ormygrd. S’grd.”

Georgia grabbed one along with a paper napkin.

“I did ballet,” I repeated, like it was no big deal. Like it didn’t consume my waking life for almost fifteen years.

“We’ve known you forever and you never told us this,” Bridget continued.

I shrugged, playing off that it had become my mother’s way to grade my worthiness of her attention and love. “I started when I was six and I was sent to ballet boarding school in Canada when I was eleven.”

“Boarding school?” Mal asked after she swallowed hard. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing for dance.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Ballet all the time. My parents had high expectations.” If my mother heard I was struggling with a skill or didn’t get the lead role in one of the performances, I didn’t come home for the summer. I stayed and practiced because she wouldn’t be seen with me unless I was the best.

Bergstroms are the best. What a family motto. Oh, and campaign slogan.

“I know what that’s like,” Georgia said. “Pageants require perfection. I didn’t have it.”

“Wow, you must be really good,” Mallory commented to me, not Georgia and her beauty pageant talents. “I can do the sprinkler or whatever that weird dance is called.”

Bridget covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. “No, you totally can’t. You have zero rhythm.”

Mallory giggled. “It’s true. I actually can’t dance. Is it possible to be tempo blind? Like color blind but for any kind of musical beat?”

I shrugged. “I can probably pull off the sprinkler, but I doubt you do it on toe shoes. I was a soloist in Spain after I graduated.”

“A little girl’s dream of being a ballerina. Awesome.” Bridget smiled imagining. “I can see you in a tutu.”

“I wanted to be a ballerina when I was six and my mother wanted me to be one after that. I didn’t have much say or time to try something else.

It was all I knew. But one night, I got pregnant by a hot and swarthy twenty-year old Swiss guy in the program.

That ended it all. I moved here and switched to yoga because it paid the bills. ”

Bills. Shit, I forgot about Duncan and the ring. GAH! I needed to be out hunting for that stupid bulldog rock or I wasn’t going to be able to pay any of my bills.

“We have to see you dance. Now that we know, we gotta see you in action,” Mallory prompted.

Bridget and Georgia nodded in agreement.

“I only do it now on my own. Usually early in the morning before my first class. I walked away from it all for Sierra.”

Bridget and Mallory sat side-by-side and had matching mopes. “But you got a sweet, rough and tumble girl out of it! She’s better than ballet.”

I wholeheartedly agreed. “You’re right, I don’t regret Sierra one bit. But I don’t like to talk about my past, even with you all. Duncan is a prime example of my shitty judgment, so I like to leave it there."

My cell chimed with a text, and I pulled it from my sweatshirt pocket. “Oh, it’s her!”

I swiped and enlarged the photo of her with Dex. She couldn’t be smiling any bigger and Dex was giving a thumbs up, which I knew was for me that everything was fine.

My eyes filled with tears again as I passed the phone to Mallory for her to see. “She’s better than ballet and now she’s at camp for a week.”

I set my forehead in my palm and a wave of missing her overwhelmed me. God, I was a mess.

“Don’t cry!” Bridget said, patting my hand. “You need more wine. Wine makes everything better.”

“And sex,” Mallory added. “Sex makes everything even better-er than wine.”

“Since I can’t have wine for, well, ever, I agree with Mallory,” Georgia commented. “Sex makes everything better.”

I lifted my head, looked down the table to Luke. Mallory was definitely right. What I needed was a wine-and-Luke combo.