"Cowboys, Kate!" Susan, one of my two best friends, repeated for the third time in a shrill voice. "Real cowboys. It'll be so much fun."
The evening I married Dusty, I had no intention of meeting a man, let alone ending up with one for the rest of my life.
"I don't know, Sue." I leaned against her bathroom counter and adjusted my tank top in the mirror. "It's only been a month since Andre and I broke up."
"Yes, yes. And we've suffered alongside you for the past month too. Now, will you forget about him?" She rolled her eyes. "C'mon. Holly said this place is great. We have to go. It'll be fun."
Holly shrugged as she looked at herself in the mirror beside Susan and me. "It's all right. Taco and the boys might be there tonight too."
"Oh, the elusive Taco." Susan rolled her eyes. "Are we finally going to get to meet the beefy burrito guy?"
Holly's cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink. "Maybe. If he's there."
Susan laughed. "Oh we have to go now, Kate. Consider it intelligence gathering on the nacho."
Holly suddenly turned a deep shade of red. "We don't have to go if you don't want to, Kate."
I smiled at Holly just because she was the sweetest person I've ever met even when she played it up like she did that night. "You really want to go, don't you?"
She grinned. "Yeah."
I sighed. "I must be out of my mind, but all right. We're going."
Looking in the mirror again, I sighed again. The woman staring back at me from the reflection had eyes the color of fresh fields of clover, but they looked old suddenly. It almost didn't manner that my flat iron had tamed her shoulder length unruly chestnut colored hair for once or that her make-up was perfect.
I thought about Andre again. My handsome, suave junior executive I loved almost as much as he loved the idea of making Vice President by the end of the quarter. When I was with him, I thought I'd finally found a place I belonged.
I still couldn't forget what happened. His last words to me stung like a fresh rattlesnake bite and were almost as deadly.
"You fucking whore! You're sleeping with him, aren't you? You're sleeping with old man Hill. That's why you got the promotion."
It was the furthest thing from the truth and he knew it. I'd been promoted because my ideas were novel and I worked twice as hard as anyone else. Sleeping my way to the top wasn't necessary when advertising came naturally to me.