Like last time, my legs are less than steady as I cross the yard, my muscles shaky and the words What the hell am I doing? playing on a loop inside my head.
How on earth does someone like Luke hook up with me, get car head the next night, and then show up at my favorite Mexican place looking completely gorgeous and being totally funny and interesting and charm his way right into my pants?
Again?
My car is parked at the curb and I look around at the other houses as I unlock the door and climb inside, suddenly conscious of the fact that I’m wearing different clothes than when I went in—Luke’s clothes—that my hair is still damp and drying in a tangled mess. That I just left a booty call.
I said I wasn’t going to do this again, and yet here I am, doing the walk of shame like it’s my job, after having sex so good I doubt I could walk without a limp if I tried. No wonder his phone is always blowing up.
I check my mirrors and pull out into traffic, and try not to replay exactly how good it was. I try not to dwell on the fact that he drives his sister and grandmother around on the weekends, that he can name the stores they shop in, and that every time I’ve been around him, he’s actually really nice. I’m definitely not thinking about the way I left him standing in his kitchen with only a blue towel tucked low on his hips, or that I can still smell his soap on my skin.
“Complimentary shampoo,” I mumble, checking my mirror again before switching lanes. “What a jerk.”
And the closer I get to home, the more the thing with Mia starts to bother me. I knew she’d had a boyfriend for a long time, but we never talk about him. It’s not an omission for a reason; it’s just not part of her day-to-day reality anymore. I’m not sure I’d ever heard his name. If I had, it was really forgettable, apparently.
At the bar he’d said they grew up together, not that they were together for seven fucking years. It’s not really common for people our age to have someone they were with for seven years—it’s huge. He knew Mia and I are acquaintances, at least, and didn’t even think to mention it?
But to be fair . . . I haven’t exactly been forthcoming during the get-to-know-you game, so he’d have zero way of knowing it would even be a thing, or that he should talk to me about any of his past relationships. I certainly haven’t. We hooked up, that’s it.
Still. I asked, and he deflected with an outright lie. And I am friends with Mia. Not best friends or as close as I was with Ruby before she moved to England, or even Lola and Harlow, but friends nonetheless. There are a few cardinal rules every girl should live by: always tell another girl when she has something in her teeth or her nose, or when her dress is tucked into her panty hose. Always provide tampons to a fellow female in need and, by extension, alert them of Shark Week accidents. If another female is drunk and needs a friend, help her.
And never, ever go after a friend’s ex.
Basic Girl Code.
I know Mia is happy and she and Ansel are the picture of wedded bliss, but I need to call her. Today. Before I lose my nerve.
Lola’s on her way out when I step into the loft, and I feel a shiver of guilt make its way up my spine.
“Hey, you,” she says, checking her wallet before dropping it in her purse.
“Hey.” I slide the door closed behind me, drop my keys on the table, and lean against the wall. “How was L.A.—wait, are you leaving again?”
“I have this . . . thing,” she says, “back up there. Oliver’s driving with me because I will cry the entire drive if I have to do it alone again.”
At the sound of his name, Oliver rounds the corner, smiling when he sees me.
“London Bridge,” he says, and bumps my shoulder as he passes. “I gave out one of your cards today. A regular who runs a couple breweries asked who did my site, and I told him about you.”
“Thanks, Olls,” I say.
As a general rule I don’t do commissions for family and friends—things have a tendency to get weird whenever money is involved, and so I try to steer clear—but to this day, Oliver’s site is one of the best things I’ve ever done. And it paid well, too. A few more jobs like that and I’d be well on my way to a kickass portfolio.
Lola closes her bag and does a quick inspection of what I’m wearing. “If I had to guess, I’d say those aren’t your clothes.”
Crap.
“How do you know I don’t wear men’s basketball shorts and T-shirts when you’re not around?” I deflect, going into the fridge and grabbing the last Red Bull. I have a long night ahead of me. “I have a very eclectic style.”
She takes a step toward me and pushes my hair behind my shoulder, so she can read whatever’s written across my chest.
“I don’t. But I do know that you aren’t now, nor have you ever been, a member of the UCSD Water Polo Team.”
Double crap.
I turn, waving her off, and put down my drink so I can pretend to sort through the mail. “Borrowed it from one of the guys at the beach,” I say.