“He looks at me like that?” Abby breathed and Jenny lifted a hand to within an inch of Abby’s face and snapped.
“Hello? A little focus?” Jenny asked while dropping her hand and Abby blinked before Jenny continued. “Have you slept with him?”
Abby’s mouth dropped open.
Now Jenny was just plain creeping her out!
“Don’t give me that look,” Jenny warned. “He’s hot. I was in your shoes, I’d sleep with him,” she announced baldly. “How long did you wait?”
“It happened Thursday,” Abby answered.
“You were always slow,” Jenny remarked.
“Jenny!” Abby cried, surprised at her friend’s easy acceptance of these facts. “Do you not see that this is a problem?”
“Yes, I do. Because you let your heart get involved with everything you do. I despair the workmen coming to your house because you’ll make them all your BFFs and end up having to buy them Christmas presents you can’t afford,” Jenny retorted.
“I will not,” Abby returned.
“You will,” Jenny replied and before Abby could get a word in, she went on, “Cash Fraser may be hot and he may be way into you but I’m not certain his heart is involved. And I know you won’t just enjoy yourself for once and keep your heart out of it. This is a problem.”
“He bought me a cashmere robe,” Abby announced and she saw Jenny’s eyes get wide. “And this,” Abby continued, lifting up her wrist to jiggle the diamond bracelet that even after that fight Abby could not bring herself to take off. “That’s why we fought. Because of the bracelet and kind of the robes too.”
Jenny was staring at her wrist but she breathed, “Robes. Plural?”
“Yes, three. Only one cashmere. The other one was silk and the other one –”
“Oh my God,” Jenny whispered, her eyes snapping back to Abby. “Why is he buying you presents? He paid, like, a fortune for you.”
“I don’t know!” Abby cried. “He’s freaking me out; it’s all freaking me out. I can’t keep my head on straight.”
Jenny’s eyes narrowed on her. “You like him.”
“Well, of course I like him!” Abby clipped and shot off the bed, starting to pace then she whipped around and looked at Jenny. “He’s hot.”
“You don’t like him because he’s hot,” Jenny returned.
“You can’t not like him because he’s hot. That’s how hot he is!” Abby cried.
“Oh shit,” Jenny breathed.
“What?” Abby asked.
“He’s good in bed,” Jenny whispered while she stood then pleaded, “Please tell me a man that hot, that rich, that everything is also not good in bed.”
Abby just looked at her friend not wanting to lie also not wanting to share.
She didn’t have to, Jenny already knew. “Shit. He is. He’s good in bed.”
“Jenny –” Abby started.
Jenny interrupted her, “How good?”
“Good,” Abby answered quickly.
“How good?” Jenny pushed. “God-like good or just, you know, good-good?”
Abby thought about lying, then because she was stupid, stupid, stupid, she decided against it.
“God-like good,” she muttered.
“Oh God,” Jenny breathed.
Then, going for the gusto, Abby whispered, “Better than Ben.”
Jenny’s face went pale and Abby held her breath.
Here we go, Abby thought.
“Really?” Jenny asked softly.
“Really,” Abby replied, her eyes began to fill with tears again and she took a deep breath to control them before saying, “We had a nice weekend, Cash and I. He’s different than Ben. He doesn’t talk as much but he’s more intense. He doesn’t move around as much but somehow he radiates more energy. He takes all my concentration. And,” she paused then went on, “I like giving it to him.”
Jenny regarded Abby for long moments and finally came closer, her voice going soft. “Abby, you’ve got to be careful. You have to remember what this is.”
Abby closed her eyes and sighed.
When she opened them, she said, “I know.”
“Are you going to be able to do that?” Jenny asked.
“I might not have to. That fight was ugly, Jenny,” Abby told her. “He might not want me around anymore.”
“I still don’t understand about the fight,” Jenny said.
“I was trying to pull away from him. I threw the diamond bracelet in his face, saying he was treating me like a whore.”
Jenny sucked in a sharp breath then whispered, “You did not.”
“I was trying to maintain a distance,” Abby defended.
“Is he treating you like a whore?” Jenny asked.
“No. Yes. I don’t know! I’ve never been a whore,” Abby answered, frustrated. “I’ve also never received cashmere robes and diamond bracelets like they were flowers and chocolates.” Abby pulled her hand through her hair, bunching it in a fist at the back and looked at her friend. “I don’t know what to do.”
Jenny stared at her a moment and then said quietly, “Abby, you do your job. You do nothing but your job. If you like it, okay, it’d be hard not to like. If he wants to give you stuff, okay, take it. That’s his deal. But you have to remember, always, it’s a job. Just a job. So when the time comes and he’s through with you, you can walk away, put this behind you and get on with your real life.”
Abby bit the side of her lip, not liking the idea of Cash being “through with her”, not at all even after The Fight but she nodded because she knew Jenny was right.
Very right.
It was then Mrs. Truman bustled in with a tray.
“You don’t have cucumber. All you had was broccoli and carrots. Carrots don’t take the puff out of your eyes.” She slammed the tray down on the bedside table and turned, hands on hips, to Abby. “I had to go to my house to get cucumber,” she declared, as if her house was in Bangladesh, not next door. “You’re lucky I had some. Now lie down,” she ordered and turned to Jenny. “Do you have the outfit sorted?”
“No,” Jenny admitted.
“What have you two been doing?” she snapped and then stomped to the wardrobe grumbling, “I have to do everything.”
Thus ended the drama and for the next half an hour, Abby lay on the bed with two slices of cucumber on her eyes covered in a cool, wet washcloth. She had to take them off to inspect the different outfits Mrs. Truman and Jenny brought from every corner of the house to show her.
Not one of them would do.
Mrs. Truman was holding up (and imperiously shaking) a strapless, baby-blue, knee-length dress with a full skirt made of acres of netting and a satin sash as a belt that Abby was relatively certain her mother wore to the prom (if she went to the prom) and demanding, “This is perfect!” when Jenny came in with more clothes.
“Mrs. Truman, I can’t wear that,” Abby said.
“Why not?” Mrs. Truman returned. “It’s just the thing.”
“That is not the thing,” Jenny butted in, her lip curled in disgust, her eyes on the dress Mrs. Truman was holding.
“It most certainly is,” Mrs. Truman shot back.
“It is, if Abby was going to the dance-a-thon where she’d end up doing the hand jive with Danny Zuko. It is not when Abby is having dinner at a castle with Famous-Worldwide Hot Guy Cash Fraser,” Jenny retorted then before Mrs. Truman could respond she looked at Abby and stated, “I think this is the thing.”