30 First Dates Read Free

nonchalance—he had yet to look up at her—or by Hilary's disheveled state of half-undress. She dipped her head, forcing Jeffrey to meet her gaze.
    "You," she said, and pointed toward the door. "Out."
    She picked up one dark brown men's shoe from the floor in front of her dresser and tossed it through the open doorway. Jeffrey bent to retrieve the other one and headed for the door. Just before he reached it, he spun to face her. In his soft, slightly assimilated British accent, he said, "I got off a little early."
    A gargled, choking laugh, more like a cough, emerged from Erin's throat. "Yeah, we all know you got off, Jeff. Have a nice life. Bye-bye."
    She gave a little half-wave and turned her fury on Hilary, who'd managed to pull her blouse over her bra-less D cups—the perkiest money could buy—and stood silently, mascara-smeared tears streaking down her cheeks.
    Erin regarded her, listening as Jeffrey's quick steps faded down the hallway and waiting for the click of the front door that signaled he was gone before she opened her mouth to speak.
    Hilary beat her to it.
    "Please don't tell Mark," she whimpered.
    Erin closed her mouth, unsure how to even respond to that.
    "What the hell, Hil?" she said, walking forward and sitting on the edge of her bed, facing away from her friend. Her forehead dropped into her hand.
    "I know, I know," Hilary said, rushing to her side. "I don't even know how it happened, really."
    Erin jerked her head up and stared at Hilary for several seconds, speechless. Oh, the irony of it all. Suddenly her entire love life, this entire farce of a friendship, seemed blended together, perfectly summed up by that one clichéd statement.
    "How did it happen?" she asked, her voice flat. Oddly enough, she really wanted to know.
    "Well," Hilary said, sniffling and reaching up to swipe her face with the back of one hand, leaving black-blown smudges across both cheeks, "I came over here to wait for you." She paused and looked up, not quite meeting Erin's gaze. "I used my key."
    Erin nodded, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes.
    "We had a fight," Hilary said, sniffling again. "Me and Mark. He started talking about the Aiden thing again."
    Erin closed her eyes. Aiden. The first man Hilary had cheated on Mark with. Why, oh why, did every relationship she found herself in—romantic or otherwise—have to be so pathological? Was she drawn to drama? Did she somehow, deep in her subconscious, choose to spend time only with people who were very, very bad for her?
    "Oh…kay. And that caused you to wind up on my bed having sex with my boyfriend how, exactly?" Erin asked, trying very hard to keep her voice under control. She felt like screaming at her, but she knew from experience that Hilary would freak out, cry, and somehow wind up finding a way to dump the entire situation in Erin's lap, as if it were her fault. "Start with step one. When did you get here, and how did Jeffrey happen to be here, when he doesn't even have a key?"
    Hilary reached over to Erin's nightstand for a tissue and blew her nose loudly. Instead of throwing it into the trash can two feet away, she set the used tissue between them on the bed. Erin recoiled from it slightly, wrinkling her nose, and then realized her bed had been defiled in worse ways this evening. She winced.
    "He wasn't here," Hilary said. "I came straight here from Mark's house. It must have been about 7:30. I'd barely gotten in the door when Jeffrey knocked on it. I was just about to text you to see where you were." She scooted back on Erin's comforter, grabbed a blue and white zebra-striped throw pillow with "Party Animal" embroidered on it in hot pink letters and pulled it tight to her chest, looking for all the world like a frightened little girl. "I was freaking out. Mark was threatening to call off the wedding," she said in a small voice. She stopped talking, tears streaming down her cheeks again as she stared at the wall opposite the bed.
    Erin sighed and handed her the