Free Reckless Abandon by Andrea Randall Page A

filters out the various exits to enjoy the warm June night. C.J. and Regan approach the bar, and C.J. introduces us.
    “November, this is my cousin, Regan Kane.” C.J. steps aside and Regan shakes my hand with a sexy smile overtaking his face, promptly heating mine.
    “Nice to meet you, November. I’ve heard great things about you.”
    “From who? C.J.? Don’t believe a word of it.” I laugh. “You don’t really have an accent.”
    Regan smiles as he stretches his arms over his head. “I’m not from Ireland, I just live there. The accent is easy for me to turn on and off.” He shrugs and thanks Josh, who hands him a beer. “You were great up there tonight.”
    My face ignites. “You were here?”
    “Yeah, your voice is full, it has depth. You’ve been singing a long time.” He says this with authority.
    “I guess.” I shrug. “Listen, I’m exhausted, and I have a long week of work coming up. Are we still playing here every other week?” I question Josh. I want to make sure I can hang out with Adrian this weekend.
    “Yeah. Let’s rehearse Tuesday, since you’ll be in Concord Wednesday through Friday. Sound good, Regan?” Josh nods in Regan’s direction, whose studious eyes never leave mine.
    “See you Tuesday.” Regan smiles through his words as I walk away.
    Monica follows me to the parking lot, but I don’t notice until I’m almost at my car.
    “Ember.”
    I turn around to find her standing cross-armed. “Yeah?”
    “What’s going on with Adrian?”
    “What do you mean?” I walk back toward her.
    “Don’t treat me like I’m dumb—I’m your best friend. I see what’s going on, but I don’t know why you’re not telling me.” Her face twists in hurt.
    “Monica,” I sigh, “I’m not intentionally keeping anything from you. I just don’t know what’s going on yet, so there’s not really anything to talk about.”
    “Can we talk about the fact that his car was in front of your apartment this morning?”
    Damn.
    “We can , but nothing happened. I swear. Look, Mon. It’s comfortable with him. There aren’t any surprises and we’ve got history.” I leave out the part about our hot make-out session in my living room.
    “Fine. Now, I get that you’re all guarded now because of what happened with Bo, but you can’t keep stuff from me. That’s not what best friends do.”
    She’s right.
    “You’re right, Mon. I’m sorry. As soon as there’s something to tell, I’ll tell you.”
    Monica stares at me, picking through my brain with her eyes before releasing a frustrated sigh. “Just be careful, OK? Oh! Josh and I are going away Friday to my parents’ house, so I have to drive separately to Concord on Wednesday.”
    “That’s fine.” I shrug nonchalantly while silently thanking whatever powers arranged that. Now I won’t have to tell her about going to Adrian’s on Friday.
    “Night.” Monica turns back to Finnegan’s.
    “Night.”

 

    Chapter Nine
     
    The first part of this week has been a total bitch. Carrie placed interns with Monica and me in our offices, and handed them the rest of our workloads so we can focus “one hundred percent” on the DROP collaboration. This means that yesterday and today I’ve had to put up with oh-so-many questions from college seniors that I know for a fact I wasn’t annoying enough to ask when I was in their shoes.
    “Don’t friend potential contacts on Facebook. In fact, you need to make yourself as private as possible on that damn site,” I huff as I walk over to the computer to adjust the intern’s privacy settings.
    “Or you could not have an account at all, like Ember,” Monica chirps as she walks in.
    The intern contorts her face in a mix of horror and disgust. “You don ’t have a Facebook account at all ?” 
    Monica and I laugh and shake our heads as I try to offer an explanation.
    “Believe it or not, when we were in college it was only available for college students. Period. Now that they let any old cat