“I’m sorry, did you black out when I was listing all your sins? Dude, a week after sleeping with her, you called me, panicked that she might want a commitment. You asked me to dump her for you.”
I smiled at the memory. It had taken a week for Austin to completely consume me in a way so hellishly terrifying that the only option had been for me to break things off.
And then, I realized—I didn’t want to.
It was fear talking.
Things had been perfect.
Until that night.
Hell.
It always came back to that, now, didn’t it?
I was doing the right thing.
I was.
“Look,” I said right before we pulled up to the little café, “all you need to know is that I love her. That’s enough, right?”
He whistled. “Apparently, since you’re learning how to ride a bike. If I see you adopt a frog, I’m going to be worried, man.”
I laughed and then shuddered. “No, but I wouldn’t say no to a dog.”
He stopped walking. “But you hate pets!”
“And yet, I’ve taken care of you for how long?” I fired back.
“Touché,” Lucas muttered under his breath as we made our way into the restaurant and sat in a corner booth. The waitress brought us menus and water.
I hadn’t actually hung out with Lucas sans Avery in a long time. It was nice. Not that I didn’t like Avery. I just hadn’t realized how much I missed my best friend.
And baseball talk.
And everything that didn’t have to deal with keeping lies and promises straight and a smile on my face even though the silence was eating me alive.
The waitress returned and took our orders and then brought us our sodas.
It was relaxing.
Just being with my best friend.
I was actually starting to relax.
The bell on the door clanged; both Lucas and I looked up.
My expression completely froze.
Lucas frowned. “Isn’t that Mayor Rogers?”
“Yeah.” Suddenly sick, I put down my sandwich and felt like I was going to barf.
“What the hell is he doing with your mom?”
Time froze. While I locked eyes with my best friend, my expression was a mixture of anger and irritation.
“Maybe you should start at the beginning.” Lucas ran his hands through his hair.
It took me an hour to get it out.
And once it was out, I knew it was only a matter of time before my world shattered, taking Austin down with it.
Chapter Thirty-One
AUSTIN
“I’m impressed.” My professor actually said those words. They came out of his mouth, and I could have sworn he was smiling; I mean, his teeth were clenched, but the point? He said the word “impressed.”
“Thank you.” I grinned, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. “It’s been really interesting.” Images of Thatch on his knees in front of me, his hands clasped around my hips as he pressed hot kiss after hot kiss against my skin, flooded my head until a burning heat erupted like goose bumps all over my body.
“Has it, now?” He eyed me up and down. Yeah, I didn’t like that look. I quickly put all images of Thatch on lockdown. The last thing I needed was for my professor to think I was hitting on him. “I have an idea of what you could do to make it better.”
My eyes narrowed. If he said sleep with him, I would take an F and then punch him in the face.
Hands shaking with nerves, I put them behind my back and took a deep breath. “Okay, what’s your suggestion?”
“Get one.”
“I’m sorry?” A roaring sound exploded in my ears. “Get one, what?”
“A breast augmentation.” He shrugged. “Imagine how many followers you would get if you blogged about it. Besides . . .” He stared at my chest longer than necessary before looking back at me. “It couldn’t hurt.”
It. Couldn’t. Hurt.
I waited for him to say something more, rather than start organizing his papers on his desk as if expecting me to say, Awesome, I’ll get right on that.
It couldn’t hurt.
Well, something was going to hurt.
The feel of my sharp heel in his ass!
“Great suggestion.” I tried to keep the venom out of my voice. “Although extremely sexual in nature, to the point where I’m pretty sure I could file a lawsuit against you and win—I’m going to have to reject that solid idea on the basis that I’m not a fan of going under the knife, and I’m happy the way I am.”
The minute the words came out of my mouth.
I realized how true they were.
I was happy.
Actually happy with my body.
I smiled brightly.
My boyfriend was a plastic surgeon, he worshipped my body, he didn’t tell me I had gained weight, and he encouraged me to have dessert.
He was perfect.
I’d dated guys like my professor all my life.
He and Braden would be great friends, wouldn’t they?
“It was just a suggestion,” he said in a clipped voice before meeting my eyes again. “You can go now.”
Dismissed.
I bet if I had sex with him, I’d get an A.
Gross.
I nodded my head and made my way out the door just in time to see Satan in all his glory waiting by my car.
“Why am I not surprised to see you?” I was ten seconds away from slamming my books against Braden’s face. “You’re like a really, really, really, really—”
He sighed.
“Really,” I added for effect. “Bad cold. Like the ones that kill a person dead.”
“You done yet?”
“No.”
“Whatever.” Braden shrugged. “Your dad told me where I could find you, and we still haven’t talked about the fund-raiser.”
“So talk.”
“It will look good for your father to have my family on his side. We have money, and money talks. All I’m saying is if you care about your father, you’ll do it.”
“Are you threatening me?” Who was this guy?
“No.” He shrugged. “I just think that with everything going on, it would probably be best to show a united front.”
“‘Everything going on,’ meaning the fund-raiser?”
He smirked; it was a cold look, one that chilled me to the bone. “Funny, and I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Ask your boyfriend.”
“How did you know I had a boyfriend?”
“Your father, how else?”
“You’re not really making sense.”
“I wasn’t really trying to. We’re going together, and that’s final.”
“Hmm, let me see. When hell freezes over, and even then, I think I’d rather freeze right along with it.”
Braden towered over me. “You always were difficult.”
“And you always were threatening.”
“You’d think if you had a plastic surgeon as a boyfriend, he’d at least do you for free.”
Okay, that was too many insults in one day.
I swung my arm back and punched him in the nose so hard I heard a crack.
Only it wasn’t his nose.
It was my hand.
“Austin!” Thatch ran into the ER, pulling back the curtain with one giant swoop. He kissed me on the mouth before I could get a word out, then lightly held my hand. “There’s a lot of swelling, I can’t tell if it’s broken.”
“You should see the other guy,” I joked.