Read Online Laid Bear by Marina Maddix - Free Book Online Page A

work, so see you tonight. Oh, and B?”
    “Yeah?”
    “He’d better be worth it. Love ya!”

“B , I haffa tell ya look…mahvelous!” Kimmy giggled drunkenly as she staggered to the kitchen to mix up another G&T. Bethany thought gin was disgusting but Paul and Kimmy loved it so she’d stocked up on her way home from work.  
    She was still nursing her first margarita on the rocks. The anxiety of Max’s leaving and the guilt from ignoring her friends knotted her stomach so much that she just wasn’t feeling the boozy vibe. Instead she clutched her midriff from laughing too hard as Paul and Charlotte danced around to a rap song about a guy who liked shopping in thrift stores.  
    “No, I’m totes serious,” Kimmy slurred when she slouched onto the couch next to her, a little of her drink sloshing over the side. “Love likes you.”
    “What?” Bethany laughed.
    “I think what our sobriety-challenged friend is trying to say,” interjected Char, breaking away from Paul’s energetic dance moves, “is that love agrees with you.”
    “Yeah, you’re fucking glowing,” agreed a breathless Paul. “You look like a dog that just ate its own shit.”
    The girls all groaned collectively at the imagary. Paul had apparently enjoyed one too many G&Ts as well.
    “And what this one is trying to say is that you’re walking around here with a shit-eating grin on your face,” translated Charlotte. “And that we’re all so happy that you’ve finally found a guy worthy of you but if you ditch us for a dude again, we’ll have to stage an intervention.”
    “Whashesaid…” Kimmy’s eyes were drooping and her head was lolling precariously to one side.  
    “Uh oh, woman down! Houston, we have a problem! Woman down!” Paul ran into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a glass of water, which Bethany assumed was for Kimmy to drink. Charlotte managed to pull it from his hands before he let it fly in Kimmy’s slumbering face.
    “My darling,” she said to him. “I think you’d better drink this yourself if you don’t want to end up like Passed-Out Beauty over there.”
    He looked at her for a moment, swaying a little, then nodded. Five years ago he would have laughed and mixed himself another drink but one too many hangovers had taught him to listen when his friends warned him he’d had enough.
    Bethany helped Kimmy lie down and covered her with her grandmother’s throw, then the trio moved into the kitchen. Since her friends had arrived, they’d been laughing and dancing and drinking — a typical Friday night. But now they wanted answers.  
    “So who is this guy?”
    “What’s he do for a living”
    “Is he good to you?”
    “More importantly, does he go down on you?”
    “Paul!”
    “What? It’s a valid question, Charlotte. Also, is he thick or long?”
    “Enough!” Bethany held her hands up in surrender. Her friends deserved some answers for being so patient with her lately. “Charlotte, he’s a really amazing guy who treats me like a goddess.”
    She turned to Paul. “Paul, he works in international relations and yes, he does.”
    Paul raised his eyebrows. “And?”
    Bethany blushed and cleared her throat. “Um, both.”
    “Oh God!” Paul fell back in his chair, overcome with joy or jealousy, Bethany wasn’t sure which.  
    “Okay, I have another question,” said Char. “Does he discourage you from calling or hanging out with us?”
    That got Paul’s attention. “You mean, like, is he isolating her?”
    “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m asking, but in what I’d hoped would be a less obvious way, dufus.”
    Bethany was shocked by her friends’ suspicions. “No! No way. Not at all.” She dropped her eyes and used her finger to connect the water drops on the side of her glass. “I just got caught up, is all.”
    “Really, B? Cuz it seems like there’s something else eating at you. If this guy is hiding you away or trying to wedge himself between us…”  
    “It’s