The Friendship Pact. Tara Taylor Quinn

      “Are you gay?”

      Her come-hither went south, but her gaze didn’t falter. “Absolutely not.” How could he even ask? They’d had sex—more than once.

      “I didn’t think so. I mean...I’ve...ah, forget it.”

      He’d been her escort twice as often as any of Danny’s other friends over the years. She’d had her own dates, too, but among Danny’s crowd, he knew her best of anyone—apart from Koralynn.

      “No,” she said, telling herself she wasn’t hurt. “You asked me if I’m gay. Is that what you think?” Okay, after the first time they’d done it she could maybe see him thinking that. But after that night at Wesley during junior year Homecoming?

      “Hell, no!” He pulled her closer, leaving no doubt as to what he was thinking—right where men’s thoughts usually went.

      “Then why ask?”

      “It’s just...Danny wondered.”

      “You’re asking for Danny?” Did her friend’s husband really believe she was attracted to women?

      The thought was followed immediately by another. That she was attracted to Koralynn?

      Was that what had created the walls between them?

      Bending until his forehead rested against hers, Jake sighed. “I’m asking for myself,” he said. “We aren’t kids anymore, Bailey. I’d like to give us a try. For real. I said something to Danny and he said something about wondering if you were gay.”

      “He didn’t ask you to check me out?”

      “No.” The reply was adamant. “Not at all. He just didn’t want me to waste my time....”

      She wasn’t gay. Not even a little. Not even tempted. She got turned on by guys.

      She just didn’t want a full-time man in her life.

      She also didn’t want her best friend’s husband to continue to hold her at arm’s length. She wanted to be close to him—because it would make Kora happier. She wanted to be a full-fledged, completely accepted member of Kora’s family, the way she used to be.

      “I’m confused,” she said now, smiling again—but not as openly. “Are you asking me out? As in just you and me?”

      It would be a first. She and Jake spending an entire evening alone, not as part of a group that included Danny and Koralynn.

      “I’m bungling an attempt to do exactly that.”

      Wine was good. Graduating from law school was good. Having a room full of people there to help her celebrate was good. The Mitchells kicking out the judge was great.

      And Jake...was a definite turn-on.

      “Would you like my answer now, or after you get around to actually asking?” If she hadn’t had so much to drink she wouldn’t have flirted.

      “I think now.”

      Koralynn would be thrilled. Danny might warm up to her. And Bailey...

      “Then, yes, Jake. I would like to go out with you.”

      For a while.

      Just as long as he understood that she wasn’t like Koralynn.

      Because Bailey didn’t do exclusive. Or believe in happily ever after.

      Not even when she was drunk.

      Chapter Five

      March 2010

      I drove as fast as I could, feeling that if I could get there quickly enough, I could prevent what had already happened.

      I drove with the urgency of one who was watching a train about to wreck and couldn’t stop it, but couldn’t not try.

      I drove because I didn’t know what else to do. My best friend was on a slow train to self-destruction and I had to save her.

      I’d gotten out of school that afternoon, four days before spring break, when I got Danny’s phone call. He called me every afternoon within five minutes of the last bell, to ask how my day was and catch me up on his. As a financial analyst for a marketing firm, Danny’s hours usually didn’t fluctuate all that much, but he had to make a lot of decisions he’d talk to me about. And we’d discuss what we wanted for dinner, too. That Monday was different. Danny was calling to tell me he was meeting Jake, a certified financial planner now, for a drink after work. Bailey had just broken up with him and he was taking it hard.

      I didn’t like the edge to Danny’s voice when he mentioned Bailey, but I understood his frustration. Jake had been on a crash course to nowhere for most of the past year while Danny and I watched our friends stagger through a relationship strewn with choices that weren’t exactly conducive to being lifelong partners. Needless to say, we were unable to prevent the inevitable disaster.

      Still, I didn’t blame Jake and Danny shouldn’t blame Bailey, either. Yeah, she was difficult sometimes, but she’d been honest with Jake from day one. Even after she agreed to date him exclusively, she’d told him that it was only for the time being. That she had no intention of marrying.

      I knew better, of course. Bailey wanted a family even more than I did, or as much as I did, and that was saying a lot.

      But Jake pushed her, and that never worked. You had to let Bailey come to you. Let her make her choices in her own time.

      Danny didn’t get the finer points of dealing with someone as complicated as Bailey. And he’d grown weary of my friend. Resulting in a couple of the biggest fights we’d ever had. One on Christmas night, of all times. Christmas of 2009 had gone down in history as the worst Christmas of my life.

      After a big family dinner with my folks, including both of Danny’s parents, their respective spouses, and Jake and Bailey, too, Danny and I had gone home and spent the entire evening alone. In separate rooms in our three-bedroom house.

      Jake had asked Bailey to marry him in front of the whole family. Which wasn’t something you did to Bailey. You didn’t put her on the spot like that. Publicly and without warning. And particularly when it involved something as far-reaching and personal as marriage.

      Shocked, she’d said the first thing that had come to mind. No.

      I cared about Jake. Cared that he was hurting.

      But I loved Bailey. And knew that Bailey’s breaking up with Jake now, three months after the disastrous proposal, meant only one thing. That she loved him and was scared. So, just as Danny was meeting Jake, I had to get to Bailey.

      I found her alone in the tiny office she’d been allotted in the family law firm she’d hired into even before she’d passed the bar exam the previous summer.

      “You really should lock the door when you’re here alone,” I told her, wishing she wasn’t sitting there so prim and proper and lawyerlike behind the desk that was almost as big as the room. I wanted to give her a hug.

      Because I could tell she needed one.

      “Diane just left.”

      I knew Diane Langdon, Mayer and Mayer’s receptionist, due to my frequent visits to the firm. Bailey had turned into a regular workaholic and more often than not, I had to drag her away to spend any time with her at all.

      “All the more reason to lock up,” I said now, dropping down into the small leather chair across from her.

      “We share the floor with the offices of two private security companies and the building has a doorman and a guard as well.”

      People still walked in off the street, and creeps didn’t all look creepy. But I let it go. I had a different battle to fight at the moment.

      Bailey pretended to study the brief open on her desk. I say pretended because I saw the way her eyes