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I step back and nod. “Thanks, Sonia.”
She gives us both a wary, parting look before following in Laney’s footsteps.
Nate and I both stand there with limp arms. Awkwardness settles on us as we look back at the room.
“Well, that was weird.” Abigail, queen of stating the obvious.
“Yeah, what the hell is going on with you two?” Seth asks.
Bridget, Seth’s stepsister, pats her lips with her napkin and then sets it in her lap. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”
Seth glares at her.
Their relationship has always been strained.
I don’t think he’s ever gotten over his mother remarrying her father.
That’s beside the point, though.
“Enlighten me.” Seth crosses his arms, eyes drilling into her.
She lifts her innocent eyes, big and wide. “You’re not asking me to spell it out for you.”
“I’ll do it,” Jack says. “I’d say it begins with a ‘c’ and ends with ‘ompetition’.”
Nate scoffs and heads back to his seat. “What? There’s nothing like that.”
“Nothing at all.” I sound less convincing than I’d like. “I just didn’t want Nate to…” What’s the word Laney uses? “Strainhimself.”
“Sure, you didn’t,” my friend utters under his breath.
My eyes shoot to him.
There’s no mistaking. This was, as Jack said, “competition”. “I know Laney pretty well. If she’s upset, I can comfort her.”
“So do I. In fact, she’s been living with me for four months now.”
My blood boils. “You’ve been paying her to live with you. To fix you.”
“Okay, boys,easy.” Edwin pushes his chair away from the table and holds up his hands. It seems he’s ready to break up a fight if he needs to.
“I’ve spent more time with her in the pastfour months than you have in three years. I think I know her a bit better than you do at this point,” Nate says.
Andthat’sthe slap to the face I didn’t need. The betrayal I’ve felt happening this whole time.
Nate is choosing Laney over me.
After the nights he spent staying up with me to keep me from losing it after the breakup, all the conversations we’ve had about her, the reassurance that our friendship would be able to withstand Laney’s presence in Nate’s life. All of that comes to a crashing halt righthere and now.
“You think you know her better than I do?”
“Guys, how about we just…sit and have some more cake?” Seth’s jaw ticks.
“Yeah, let me go get more cake.” Abigail shoots out of her chair and scurries out of the room.
Bridget huffs, now that she’s stuck as the only woman in a sea of feral men. “Dammit, Abigail…”
“I think we’ve all grown up and changed.” The way Nate’s standing is strong and resolute. It’s almost impossible to imagine this is the same guy who has been rolling around in a chair all this time.
