One Night Three Hearts by Adele Allaire Page B

put the key into the car's ignition, and stopped short of starting up the car to drive home.
    Her last unemployment check arrived last week, and Jason agreed she would use its entirety to spend it on whatever she wanted. Rose wanted to look and feel desirable to Jason this Saturday when he presented her with thirty-five roses for her birthday. She couldn’t remember the last time they had unscheduled sex, and Rose figured she would surprise him with her first full Brazilian wax. The process was embarrassingly painful, and she couldn't believe how smooth she was when she showered the next morning.
    It was the unfamiliar nakedness, coupled with the spark of desire from her deeply hidden memories of Matt's conversations, which caused her to furtively scan the empty parking lot before unfastening the top button of her jeans. She pulled on the lever to drop the back of the driver's seat, and eased her body down beneath the line of the car windows.

CHAPTER TWO
Jason

    “Hey, man.”
    Jason looked up from his booth at Malarkey’s to see Matt towering above him twenty minutes early. This unexpected early arrival interrupted Jason’s mental rehearsals for the conversation he loosely planned to have with his old friend ever since Matt texted him that he would be in town for a business conference. His mouth suddenly felt dry, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he nervously rubbed his hands on his pants before before rising to shake Matt's outstretched hand. The pub was unusually dark for midday, and someone held open the door directly behind Matt to cast a slightly unsettling halo-like appearance around his head.
    “You look like Steve Jobs,” Jason said with a nervous half smirk in reference to Matt’s black merino wool mock turtleneck sweater, Omega watch, expensive looking wire rim glasses, and close cropped haircut. Everything about Matt’s attire seemed confident, precise, and calculated. Jason tried not to fall into old habits and compare himself to Matt, but he couldn’t avoid realizing his friend’s stark contrast of success. Jason’s day job attire consisted of whatever his wife Rose picked out from the latest Kohl’s sale, and even though he appreciated his wife’s effort at economizing, he wished that he could afford more for the both of them. And of course, Matt still had the same slightly skinny physique he had during their college days, while the tag size on Jason’s shirts contained an “X” in it for the first time in his life.
    “Very funny,” Matt replied as he slid onto the opposite bench of the booth. “I wish I had his creative genius instead of his looks. So how have you been? How is Rose?”
    “Let’s get a drink first. What will you have?” Jason scanned around the empty bar area looking for the surly bartender usually stationed there.
    “Just water,” Matt said. “I am still fighting off this jet lag and have a meeting back at HQ about the Shanghai plant in two hours.”
    The door next to the bar swung open, and a decently attractive blonde dressed in jeans and shirt with the Malarkey’s logo embroidered above her left breast walked into the main area. She spied them sitting at the booth, and pulled out a pad of paper from her apron as she walked towards them. Jason glanced at Matt, and sure enough, it appeared his friend was in the process of mentally undressing the waitress.
    Just his type , Jason thought to himself. Same flat-boobed, large pored, bad dye job, white trash damaged type he would instantly lure into his bed as he did in college. He can smell insecurity a mile away.
    “What can I get for you?” the waitress asked, her tongue piercing clicking against her teeth. Jason saw a partial view of a tattoo peeking out from under her short sleeve. Her sloppily made blonde ponytail revealed ears pierced in multiple places.
    “Whatever you have on tap for me, and a water for him,” Jason said. The waitress wrote it up and walked back over to the bar.  
    Matt had a