“He should have told me immediately.”
Liz shook her head. “At your wedding? What, shake your hand and say, ‘Congratulations and, oh by the way, I banged your sister while they were bringing out the cake’?”
Red tinted his neck and face. “Don’t talk like that, Liz.”
“Okay. Here’s the thing. He didn’t want to lose your friendship over a nothing fling. And when I came home and that chemistry was still there, it was kind of too late for him to tell you, so he’s been trying to keep his distance from me. With varying degrees of success, of course, but some of that’s on me. And this happy family camping trip didn’t help. But he did try to walk away from me.”
“It’s weird.”
It was a funny word to use, but at least they were working their way down from bluster to real feelings. “Why?”
His scowl grew more intense with each passing second, until he shrugged. “I can’t explain it. It’s just weird.”
“If we were still teenagers and all of a sudden you had to be the third wheel to the two of us, I can see why it would be weird. But we’re not. You’re married and you own a business that keeps you busy and you’re going to be a dad. You guys aren’t running buddies anymore.”
“There’s still a code.”
She wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled. “Fine. There’s some stupid code left over from high school I’m sick of hearing about. And, yes, he broke it.”
“He disrespected you.”
“Oh, hell no. He didn’t disrespect me. He disrespected you and he owns that, Mitch. He knows it and, whether you believe it or not, he’s suffered for it.”
Mitch propped his elbow on the back of the dinette bench and rested his head against his hand. “You guys never messed around when we were kids?”
“No. I don’t think we even noticed each other that way. But at your wedding, at that point in our lives, it was just...it happened.”
“And what’s happening now? You guys weren’t keeping your distance from each other in the bathhouse.”
“That was the buildup of weeks of trying to keep a distance neither of us really wanted. That I’m sorry for. Not being with him, but that you had to find out that way.”
“Do you love him?”
Whoa. “That’s a little premature, I think. I mean, I like him. I like being with him. But it’s hard to see what’s going on in a relationship when you’re spending the entire time trying not to have one.”
He was quiet for a few minutes, staring off into space. She let him have the time to think rather than poking at him some more. At least the anger vibe had stopped emanating from him in waves.
“You should know,” he said quietly, “that when he was talking about not wanting to choose between us and I asked him which of us he’d choose, he said me.”
That hurt. Probably more than Mitch intended it to. Rather than let him see it, she swallowed hard and thought about what she wanted to say. “He’s your best friend, Mitch. If he chose you, he could avoid me and eventually you guys would be okay again. If he chose me, you guys wouldn’t be friends anymore and that would put a strain on my relationship with him and with you. It would come between you and me. The whole thing would be doomed anyway, but a lot more painful in the end.”
“Is it, I don’t know...casual? Is it serious? You know he wants to get married and have kids, right? Like, yesterday.”
“I know that.” She just wasn’t sure how she felt about it yet. “Our relationships with you have been in the middle of anything we might have since the beginning. We need the time and space to see if we have something real or if we’re just burning off residual chemistry.”
He shifted his leg so it pressed against hers. She leaned her head against the back of the couch and smiled at him. “Just try to be okay with us dating. Please?”
“I’ve never been able to refuse you, imp.”
“You refused to let me drive your Camaro.”
“And now you’re stuck driving a second-rate Mustang.”
She laughed and slapped his knee. “It beat you in the—”
“Don’t.” His smile was reluctant, but he couldn’t hold it back. “He’s letting you drive that car just to piss me off. You know that, right?”
“Why do you think I agreed to borrow it?”
His chuckle was like a healing balm to her shredded nerves. “I love you, Liz. I promise I’ll try to be okay.”
And that was enough. “Aunt Mary made blond brownies.”
“Those will help.” He looked at her and narrowed his eyes. “Or did you eat them all?”
“I only had three.”
“Speaking of baked goods, that freakin’ wooden spoon hurts.” He rubbed the spot on the back of his head where she’d whacked him.
“I know.” She gave him a sweet smile. “I’m going to buy one of my own as soon as we get home.”
Chapter Thirteen