The barista started laughing. “If it makes you feel better, I only lasted a week before I told him I couldn’t take it.” She smiled. “Do yourself a favor, do him a favor—don’t let him label you with a meaningless day. If he tries, he’s not the one for you.”
“Thanks.” My voice came out scratchy and emotional. By the time she left the table I was dabbing my eyes with a brown crinkled napkin, and Austin was staring at me like I’d grown five heads.
“You slept with him,” she said. Again. As if I wasn’t painfully aware of what had taken place last night.
“Yes.”
“And now you have a weird chest fantasy.”
I grinned. “You have no idea.”
“And I never will, because I’m not asking for those types of details, but . . .” She leaned forward. “Are you seeing him again? I don’t want to be that bitchy friend that warns you not to go there—”
“Then don’t.”
“But . . .” She patted my hand, the one that was holding the napkin. “Thatch says the guy doesn’t commit—ever. And need I mention that your entire family is going to shit a brick? What about Kayla? Do you even realize the ramifications?”
I slouched. “Well, I mean, long story short . . . Because you and Thatch hooked up, Lucas had to take me home and make sure I didn’t get kidnapped on the street corner, then one thing led to another and his sister saw me at his place.”
Austin’s eyes widened. “Tell me this story has a happy ending.” She raised both hands and crossed her fingers in front of her face.
“It did last night,” I said under my breath and then inhaled loudly. “I felt bad that his sister was going to assume the worst about him, okay? Our families have never been the same ever since the fallout.”
“Right,” Austin said slowly. “The fallout from when he was found in bed with your sister!” She shouted that last part.
I covered her mouth with my hand to shush her. “Look, I haven’t forgotten what happened. It’s just for now. I mean, it’s just temporary. All the parents start talking again, everyone’s happy, crisis averted.”
Yeah, I so wished it would be that easy.
Austin slowly shook her head. “Except you slept with him. Lying to protect him, however misguided, is one thing—but having sex with him? Especially when you KNOW how he is?”
“What if this is the new me?” I asked, giving a nonchalant shrug. “What if I want to cut my hair, dye it pink, get a nose ring, and become the girl who only wants no-strings sex?”
My best friend knew me too well, knew my defensiveness was just my insecurity screaming at the top of its lungs and pounding its chest.
“Then you wouldn’t be you, Avery.” She handed me her pastry. Only a true friend would have noticed I’d been looking at the paper bag like I had tractor-beam eyes and could will it to float toward me. “And the last thing you need to do is change just because a man looks good naked.”
“So. Good,” I whimpered.
Austin raised her hands in the air. “Look, I know you’ve always sort of had a thing for Lucas—I mean, what girl in our high school didn’t? What teacher, for that matter?”
I nodded in agreement.
“But”—Austin sighed and lowered her voice—“I think it’s a bad idea. Noble that you want to help bring your families back together, but you just crossed a pretty big line, and now he’s going to just want his cake and eat it too.”
I swallowed back the emotion building up in my throat. Hating that she could be right. Hating that I was thinking of the same possibility. “Or”—I lifted my chin—“this changes everything.”
After a few moments of silence, she finally heaved a long drawn-out sigh and changed the subject. “Look, I have to get to class and I’m meeting Thatch later.” Her eyes got all dreamy, the bitch. “He’s clearing the rest of his afternoon so we can go to a matinee.”
“Aw, Thatch is just so sweet,” I said sarcastically, lashing out at her because she was making me feel even more nervous about what had transpired between Lucas and me. “You know he’s a complete player, right? As in, he isn’t the devil, but he’s his half brother?”
Austin’s dreamy expression remained. “You don’t know him like I do. He’s not like that anymore.”
Look at us. A pair of idiots.
“If you say so.”
“Well, I do.” She stood. “You’re just trashing Thatch because your new sex partner can’t keep it in his pants.”
I gaped at her. “Low blow, Austin. I don’t want to fight.” My throat got tight. “I just wanted my best friend, the person who knows me best, to tell me what to do.”
“Not how this works, honey.” Austin shoved her sunglasses on her face. “You want me to tell you it’s okay, and I can’t. Look, I’ve known Lucas just as long as you have. He’s not the same guy he was when we were in high school. He’s changed, Avery. The Lucas Thorn you crushed on isn’t the one you just slept with. He’s like a tiger that’s lived in captivity, only to be set loose in the jungle. Do you think he’s going to actually volunteer to go back in the cage? Trust me. No matter how sexy the lion tamer is—he won’t stay. He’ll stray.”
“Wait, I thought he was a tiger?”
She waved me off. “They’re both cats, and the point remains—why would any sane guy choose to settle down when he doesn’t have to? He’s getting the milk and the cow for free.”
“So now I’m fat?”
“I’m leaving. Enjoy the pastry.”
“Enjoy your date,” I grumbled, feeling worse than before, if that was even possible.
As luck would have it.
My day was about to get even better.
My text alert lit up.
Thorn: Mayday! Mayday! RED ALERT!
I rolled my eyes and texted him back.
Me: Stop overreacting and use your words.
Thorn: The mothers.
Really, that’s the only thing a person ever has to say to inflict horror and absolute terror.
Because if I read that text correctly—it was plural.
As in, our mothers. Which meant only one thing. They’d gone beyond a casual phone call and were now planning world domination.
Mine.
His.
Oh dear God.
I texted back slowly.
Me: Apocalypse.
Thorn: We may have to fake our own deaths.
Me: I know people.
Thorn: Meet at office in 5.
Chapter Thirty-Three
LUCAS
“You know, all this pacing isn’t helping—in fact, it’s making me more nervous. Just. Stop. Walking.”
I ignored Avery’s plea and kept going back and forth, back and forth in my office. My phone conversation with my mom had gone something like this:
“Oh, hi, Mom—how’s Dad?”
“The party’s back on!” she squealed. “Bill, stop that! I said stop. Your father! You know how he gets on Thursdays—between you and me, I think it’s because it’s so close to Saturday, and S stands for—”
“MOM!” My ears were bleeding. “What do you mean the party’s back on?” A cold sweat broke out across my forehead.