Chapter One

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"It's time we took control of our love lives," Callie Morris proclaimed with a decisive palm slap to the table.

Those of her friends foolish enough to leave their glasses resting on coasters reached out to steady them as the colorful contents splashed over the edges.

"In order to take control of them, we should probably have them to begin with," Beth replied, stoically. "And if we did, would we all be sitting here on a Friday night?"

She gestured at the crowded room of the neon-lit cocktail bar Callie selected for their regular catch-up, while Talia nodded in agreement. "I'd dump you losers in a heartbeat for a night of dirty, wanton sex."

"Says the only one of us currently getting any," Callie retorted. "All you have to do is snap your fingers and Aaron comes running."

She frowned when it took three attempts to make a snapping motion with her thumb and forefinger. How many cocktails did they have in the last few hours? It couldn't have been that many. Though, to be fair, Talia ordered a pitcher of margaritas when she arrived. That probably hadn't helped.

"Oh, bless. You're still so young," Talia sighed. "Men can't come running. That's doing two things at once and they all have difficulty with that."

Callie found the statement much funnier than she would if she was stone-cold sober. But while the others began tossing around combinations of things men couldn't do while having an orgasm - count to ten, work a TV remote, juggle, perform brain surgery - she took a moment to study each of her friends.

Avery was the Grace Kelly of the group, with cool, serene poise and a pristine, Chanel-inspired wardrobe. Elegant and beautiful, with an inner light which made her glow. A small part of Callie wanted to be her when she grew up. She secretly hoped the position came with a tiara. She'd always wanted one of those.

Talia was more like Sophia Loren, with dark, sultry coloring and sensual, curve-hugging attire which highlighted her ample assets. Fiery and devilishly sexy, intense and dangerous when riled. Callie had a teeny bit of a crush on her, too. Not that following Talia's example when it came to sexual conquests did her any good.

Then there was Beth, who was harder to peg, but had the potential to be a show-stopper if she loosened her corset a little and ditched the endlessly monotone selection of business suits. Did all English people dress like the weather in their country? Callie knew it rained a lot there, particularly in summer. Beth mentioned it several times, shattering all of Callie's golden-hued illusions of a British summertime filled with cricket and crumpets and cravats.

Downton Abbey had a lot to answer for.

The final member of the quartet was Callie, whose dress style was eclectic, artsy and free. She could be a bit of a tomboy at times but liked to think being a girlie-girl who loved shiny, pretty things helped balance that out. Though some things she simply had to grin and bear, like the wavy red hair which never did what she wanted it to do and freckles which multiplied like bacteria in sunshine.

To outsiders, they probably looked like an mismatched bunch. Different looks, different styles, ages which ranged from her own twenty-five to Avery's thirty-six.  If they weren't family, what could they possibly have in common? Callie shook her head a little to knock loose some of the alcohol fluff clouding her brain. That wasn't the point. The point was, if they hadn't spent time working together in the same office, their paths might never have crossed. She still thought it was kind of amazing they had. As if someone, somewhere, knew they needed each other. Their bond was something rare and precious, particularly in a city the size of New York where millions of people wore blinkers and focused all their time on the endless pursuit of career satisfaction and money rather than making any meaningful, heartfelt connections.

So much wasted energy. Did it really matter in the end? When they were old and grey and looked back on their lives, would it feel like they'd lived them to the full?

Callie wasn't convinced she could. Not yet anyway.

It wasn't that she didn't want to be successful in her chosen field. To earn a living doing what she loved was always the dream. But she wanted so much more. A home, a family, a guy she loved so much she would give up everything to be with him. A guy who loved her so much, he'd let her go before she could make that big a sacrifice.

Another Callie contradiction, Oscar would say. According to him, she was full of them. She lifted the cocktail stick from her glass to snag the cherry, smiling wryly as she chewed.

He was probably right. He usually was. Annoyingly.

When the screen of her cell-phone lit up, she knew it was him. He had a knack for texting when she was thinking about him or calling when she needed to hear a friendly voice.

'Drunk yet?' the message inquired.

'Getting there,' she texted back.

'Let me know when you're ready for someone to take advantage of you an I'll be right over.'

He probably hadn't meant it the way it translated, but there was enough of an opening for Callie to mess with him. Her thumbs wavered over the screen for a second while she considered what to say. 'Like you'd know where to start...'

She caught the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, added a winking emoji and hit send before she changed her mind. She'd never edited her texts to him, before. Why start now?

There was a brief pause. Then, 'If you're flirting with me pickings must be slim.'

Nope. As it happened, there were a couple of possibilities stood at the bar. Typical end-of-the-week stock market types still high on adrenaline, they'd been sizing up her group like prey for the last half hour. It was only a matter of time before drinks arrived with compliments from the gentlemen. Guys still did that in New York.

When the relatively cute blonde guy on her left made eye contact and smiled encouragingly, Callie looked away before he interpreted it as an invitation. She didn't need another bad choice to add to her list.

'Still early...' she texted back with a smiley emoji and one blowing a kiss, waiting for enough little service bars to light up and the message to send before she set her phone down.

"That's your problem, right there," Talia said with a nod at the table.

"Bad cell-phone reception?" Callie inquired.

"Oscar."

"My love life has nothing to do with Oscar."

"I think it has a lot to do with him."

"It's not like he sets me up. He's never liked anyone I've dated. If anything, he can see their flaws before I do." And relentlessly listed every last one of them while she jumped to their defense until the day she dumped them, typically around the six-to-eight-week mark. That was usually when her restlessness set in.

"Which would be totally acceptable if he was your gay best friend," Talia countered. "But he's not, is he? He's your back-up guy."

Callie blinked. "Seriously, you're throwing stones? I'm not the one keeping a walking sex toy in reserve until something better comes along."

"The arrangement I have with Aaron suits us both," Talia shrugged nonchalantly. "We may have sucked at being married but the sex was never a problem."

"And he's fine with being demoted from 'til death do us part' to booty call?"

"He's a guy."

"He's servicing you. If your roles were reversed, we'd be vilifying him and telling you to move on."

Talia snorted derisively. "He'd need a divorce before he can do that."

"Then cut him loose." Callie downed the remaining contents of her glass and set it back on the table. "See? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Look at us," she swung her arm in a semi-circle to emphasize the point. "We're beautiful, smart, sexy, go-getting women. Statistically, shouldn't one of us be in a steady, emotionally fulfilling relationship?"

She clamped her mouth shut before adding 'wouldn't you like to do something about that?' in case her pitch began to sound like the intro to a commercial.

"I'm pretty certain in order to be in one, you have to want one," Avery pointed out with her usual Zen-like calm.

That was the problem: Deep down, Callie did want one. She wasn't like Avery, who was so independent it would be tough for a guy to find a role in her life. Or Talia, who was content with someone to scratch her itch when the need arose. Or Beth who... well, she'd never really been certain what Beth was, to be honest. She knew she could be a real ball-breaker at work if someone messed with her neat little columns of numbers and there had been rumors in the office she might be more into girls than boys, but beyond that...

Callie sighed heavily. "I need another drink."

"You need to get laid," Talia said bluntly. "That's what this is about."

"There's more to happily-ever-after than sex."

"Not everyone gets a happily-ever-after, kid."

"I'm not a kid. You're only three years older than me. And I'm not talking about some fairy-tale romance. We all have needs, emotional as well as physical. Why aren't we out there looking for a way to satisfy them like we would if it was anything else we needed?" Callie challenged.

"Like tampons or the perfect pizza?"

"Yes. Well, no." She looked to Avery for support. "You know what I mean, right?"

"I think so," Avery replied with a small nod and a sparkle of amusement in her stunning green eyes. "You're saying people make things more complicated than they need to be..."

"Yes. Thank you!"

"All we have to do is figure out what we want and go out there and get it..."

"Exactly." Callie paused to flag down a waiter and motioned for another round of drinks. "So, why aren't we doing that?"

Avery smiled softly. "Because it's not that simple..."

"It wouldn't be so damn difficult if we were honest with ourselves and open to the possibilities," Callie protested.

Talia laughed. "Like you are about Oscar?"

"Are you ever going to get off my case about him?"

"Sorry. You know we've always wondered if there was something going on with you two," Beth politely interjected.

"I've explained it a hundred times. Oscar is my bestie. He knows me better than anyone, has seen me at my worst and any time I've needed him, he's always been there. He's Oscar."

He would never break her heart the way Timmy McLean had in the sixth grade when he kissed Stacey Mitchell under the mistletoe. Or humiliate her like the high school boyfriend she lost her virginity to by boasting about it to all his friends the next day. Or make a fool out of her like Mike, the guy she'd dated in college, who it turned out was also dating a cheerleader and a science major at the same time. Men could be. Such. Dicks.

"Is he still seeing that nurse?" Talia inquired.

Callie fluttered her eyelashes. "Princess Perky?"

The annoyingly chirpy Megan, with her bright smile and so much optimism everything would turn out all right in the end, Callie fully expected her to break into a song and dance number when music played. Within five minutes of being introduced, she'd wanted to gag. She even aimed a 'where the hell did you find this one?' look at Oscar when Megan's back was turned. In return, he smiled in a distracted, wonderful-things-are-happening-in-my-life kind of way which Callie assumed meant he loved playing the role of Prince Charming. If she hadn't known any better, she would have said he was just the teensiest bit smitten.

Even now, the thought made her throw up in her mouth a little bit.

"They broke up," she added flatly.

The news sparked a quick-fire round of interrogation.

"I thought you didn't like her," Avery said.

"I didn't."

"The last time we had cocktails, you were worried Oscar might ask her to marry him."

"I was."

"You said it would change things," Beth added

"I did."

"So, why aren't you celebrating?" Talia asked.

Good question.

Thankfully, the arrival of their drinks gave Callie time to consider her answer. Part of it probably came down to the fact she was fairly certain Oscar missed Princess Perky and the thought of him hurting hurt Callie, too. It made her want to hunt the girl down, shake her and ask how stupid she was, cos c'mon. Couldn't she see Oscar was a great guy? Was she blind? He wasn't bad looking. He had a steady job. More to the point, he was smart and funny and had a heart as big as Manhattan. It was only a matter of time before some lucky woman snapped him up, tied him down and started producing a bunch of little Oscars'.

Where Aunt Callie fit into that picture was the sticking point.

Of course, she'd be happy if he was happy, or at least, she'd try . Even if it felt like she was losing him? Yeah, that right there was the crux of the problem. Just thinking about her life without him hurt, and naturally, now she was thinking about it, she had a stupid lump in her throat when her glass was empty.

Thankfully, the waiter arrived with their order.

She reached for her purse and dug out her credit card to pay for the drinks. But when she offered it to him, the waiter shook his head. "Compliments of the gentlemen at the bar..."

Callie rolled her eyes. Of course, they were.

"Don't wave at them," she warned Talia when her friend turned around to scrutinize their benefactors.

"The one on the left is cute..."

"Girls night out, no guys, remember?"

"Just as well I still have my man repellent, then, isn't it?" Talia pouted apologetically, held her hand up, tapped the rock on her ring finger and turned her back on them. "I think you should sleep with him."

"I'm not sleeping with some random guy who bought me a drink in a bar."

Been there, done that, hadn't felt remotely good about herself in the morning. It was the one and only time she'd played the 'what would Talia do?' game. She shuddered at the memory. Never again.

"I meant Oscar."

"What?" Callie spluttered. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Aren't you curious what it would be like?"

"No."

"You've never pictured him naked?"

"No!"

"I bet you will after this."

Callie leaned back in her chair and blinked. "When did this turn into pick-on-Callie night?"

"Around about the time you said we all need to take control of our love lives," Talia replied dryly before taking another sip of her drink. "You want to convince us, you need to lead by example."

"And the best way to do that is by having sex with Oscar?"

That wouldn't complicate her relationship with him, at all.

Talia looked around the table. "Anyone else want to chime in on this, or are we leaving it to me to say what we've all thought since she brought him to the office Christmas party?"

Avery grimaced apologetically. "You did flirt with him a lot."

"And the arm thing..." Talia added with a sensual stroke of Avery's arm. "Let's not forget that."

"Or the leaning," Beth interjected with a grimace at Callie. "Sorry. But you did." She demonstrated what she meant by tipping her hands together into a namaste. "You leaned."

Was this supposed to be a light-bulb moment of clarity?

They were talking about Oscar and Callie, Callie with Oscar. As friends, they went together like ham and eggs or hot apple pie and ice-cream. As lovers, they would make as much sense as ham and ice-cream or hot apple pie and eggs.

"Being friends is a good foundation for a romantic relationship," Avery said.

She'd know that how, exactly? Callie couldn't remember the last time Avery went on a date. There'd been some random architect guy like, a gazillion years ago, who she lived with for a while, but that was it. At her age she should be married with at least one kid. Her career shouldn't be everything.

"There's no spark with Oscar?" Avery prompted. "Not even a little?"

No. She'd never thought of him that way. Sure, she flirted with him, particularly when she wanted something, but she'd been doing that since puberty. She was naturally flirtatious. Affectionate, too. Hence the stroking of arms or patting of shoulders or the hugs she provided when it felt like someone needed one. She did that with lots of people. And as for the leaning, they didn't lean, lean, they -

What was she doing? She didn't have to justify her actions. She knew exactly where she stood with Oscar and vice-versa. If anyone else had a problem with it, they could go take a long walk off a short -

No. She took a deep, calming breath. They were getting off topic and she'd made up her mind.  The feeling she had recently, the one which made it feel like she was on some kind of deadline, or running late or letting something slip through her fingers, had to stop. It was messing with her sleep and her creativity and her patience. They were doing this. It would be good for all of them, because she wasn't the only one stuck in a rut. No arguments. 

Her chin lifted. It was time to get serious. 


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