Filthy Virgin

Chapter 15: Celeste

"And now my nipples get hard every time he comes around! Actually, it's worse than that. All I have to do is hear his voice and my panties are wet like that!" I snapped to emphasize my point, and Madison cackled.

"It's not funny," I grumbled and shoved a chip loaded with salsa into my mouth. I'd like to say we were drunk, but we weren't. I'd also like to say we were at home where no one could hear about how embarrassing my work life was now, but that would have been a lie as well.

Madison and I were in the corner of a Mexican restaurant on a Thursday night, where I was spilling the beans about my current love life- if you could even call it that.

I'd raised my voice a bit with my dismay, but what else was I supposed to do when just the mere thought of Liam had my breath speeding up and my face flushing? I was turning into a mess. And it was all his fault! If he hadn't taken me out to lunch earlier this week, we wouldn't have had that time to get to know each other. I wouldn't have gotten to appreciate the man for who he was, not just what he made my body feel. My heart was getting involved, and it was fucking with me.

I glared at a couple of guys a few tables away from us who were eavesdropping and glancing over at our table, and they quickly looked away. I turned back to Madison, shoving another chip into my mouth while she continued to laugh at my expense.

"I'm sorry Celeste, I've just never seen you this put out over a guy before. It's quite entertaining." She burst into another fit of giggles at the glare I gave her.

Thinking about her words, I realized she was right. And I guess I could sort of see the humor in the situation. My lips twitched with a smile, and a snort of laughter escaped me.

"Alright, enjoy it while you can. Just wait until I'm crying on your shoulder and eating all your ice cream when my heart is inevitably broken!" I said the words with humor, and although she laughed at my joke, her eyes went dim. "Mads?"

She looked away and grabbed a chip. Now she was the one eating them to avoid dealing with something. I reached over and placed my hand on top of hers. My heart clenched when I saw her bottom lip tremble, and I was really worried when she looked up at me and I saw tears begin to spill down her cheeks.

"Oh, Madison," I breathed. I immediately scooted out of my side of the booth and went to hers, wrapping my arms around her so she could quietly cry on my shoulder, just like I'd joked about doing to her a second ago.

Thank god we were in a corner and there was barely anyone around. I waited a few minutes while Madison cried and then gathered herself together, sniffling and grabbing a napkin to wipe her eyes and nose.

"Madison, tell me what's going on. You can't hide it now." I kept my tone soft, but phrased them so she knew she wouldn't get out of it.

"I'm sorry, I know this was about you and I don't mean to monopolize it with my own problems."

I let out a sound of disbelief, waiting until she looked me in the eyes to respond. "Madison, you are my best friend. There's no 'about me' or 'about you' here. I know you've been holding something back, and I figured you'd tell me about it when you were ready, but now I'm thinking that you just didn't want to burden me."

She flushed guiltily and nodded. "Yeah. You've had so much to deal with, and then things started to go so well for you that I didn't want to ruin it for you."

"Well first of all, that's dumb. I always want you to tell me when you've got something going on. You don't always have to be happy or perfect Mads. You're allowed to break down, to struggle. To be imperfect. Now tell me what's wrong."

I waited patiently while she cleared her throat, trying to put her words together, but when she spoke she dropped a bomb I never would have expected to hear.

"Luke and I are separating."

My jaw dropped in shock, and my blood froze. "What?"

She nodded at my whisper, eyes filling with tears again and voice trembling when she continued. "About six months ago, we found out I was pregnant."

A sqwak-like sound left me, interrupting her sentence. They hadn't said anything to anyone!

"Before you get excited, we... lost the baby about three months in. That was the third time," she whispered brokenly. "My third miscarriage. And no matter what we do, we can't seem to make it past three and a half months."

"Oh my god," I murmured. I could feel her heartbreak like it was my own. I knew her and Luke had wanted to have kids for forever, and to have that chance taken away from them so many times... It would have been devastating.

"We've started to blame each other for it, and we can barely stand to be in the same room together. We've kept up the act in front of everyone, but it's becoming way too hard to keep it up. We talked about it, and we think we need to spend some time apart. Figure out who we are individually instead of as a couple. I mean, we've been together since high school, and never really got to know who we were before getting married."

She let out a deep breath, and I could tell this had been weighing on her for a while. "When did you guys decide to separate?"

"After the last get-together. He said he'd talk to Anthony about staying with him, and that I could stay in the house."

"Well at least it's just separation, not divorce. I'm assuming you guys still love each other?"

"Oh god Celeste, I still love him so much. I just don't know how to love him anymore." A tear fell, and that's when I knew, Thursday or not, we needed that margarita fishbowl stat. I waved over the waiter and ordered one, and he must have realized the desperate need for it because he came back with it in less than two minutes.

"Alright Madison, here's what we're going to do," I said as I moved the drink to the spot between us, giving her one straw and taking the other. "We're going to chug this fishbowl like we've been wandering in the dessert for 40 days and 40 nights and this is manna from Heaven. Then we're going to get a ride back to my place where we're going to drink some more until we're singing along with 80's music in our underwear. You're going to stay the night and we're both going to call into work so we can stay hungover in bed all day and not worry about Luke or Liam or real life for at least the next 48 hours. Deal?"

She gave me a watery smile. "Deal."

"Pour some sugar on me!"

-----

"Ooh, in the name of loooove!"

"Pour some sugar on me!"

"C'mon fire me uuuup!"

Our rendition of Def Leppard was admittedly terrible, but we were having a good time nonetheless. Taking turns belting out the chorus lines, we were in my kitchen in mismatching bras and underwear, a whisk in her hand and a spatula in mine like they were microphones.

We'd already had a bottle of wine (or two) and several shots of tequila, and we were trashed. True to our deal, we hadn't mentioned anything about our lives since we downed the margarita at the restaurant instead focusing on having a good time and letting go for a little.

"Oh crap," Madison suddenly muttered. Her face went pale and she dropped the whisk, running to the bathroom I had just around the corner. I followed her on drunken legs, getting there just in time to help hold her hair back while she tossed her cookies.

"I'm thinking that maybe it's time for water and bed," she said after finishing up.

"I think you're right. It's after 3 am anyway. Don't forget to send an email about not coming in. All you have to say is you puked and you're free and clear!"

"Ugh, don't remind me. I'll be happy if I never see that side of your toilet again."

"Well I'm fairly sure the toilet feels the same way." Giggles burst from me at the joke, and Madison joined in reluctantly. We stumbled out of the bathroom and upstairs to my room with my giant bed. Both of us fell back onto it, not even bothering to climb under the covers.

I was just drifting off from a mix of exhaustion and alcohol when I felt Madison grab my hand. I woke up just enough to hear her quietly whisper her thanks to me.

"Anything for youMads," I mumbled before the two of us passed out.