ONE
Lila
One of thehappiest moments of my best friend’s life was about to take place right behind that door and here I was, stalling on the sidewalk out front. I had a meticulously wrapped gift in hand and was wearing a black and lilac floral dress I had only worn one other time—on a first date that had ended up being a complete dud.
That was the worst; when you saved an outfit for a special occasion, only for that occasion to fall miles short of any of your expectations. At least no one at Charlie and Nathan’s engagement party would have seen me in it yet. It was like I was giving it a second chance. Although, judging from the bizarre, nauseated feeling brewing deep in my gut, I wasn’t sure this dress’s second outing was going to be any better than its first.
Shut up.
I mentally scolded myself for the negative thoughts. My best friend was gettingmarried, for crying out loud. Her engagement party was going to befun. Charlie and I had fantasized about this day since we were just twenty-two, fresh out of college, with a blossoming friendship and still naïve to all the dating atrocities in our near future.
Nathan might be a bit, um...stoic, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he loved Charlie. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her. I was so over the moon thrilled for them that I had burst into happy tears the moment she’d told me.
The only thing causing my mixed emotions was that I had hung on to the stupid thought that, when Charlie did turn up at my house one random Sunday morning, eager to show me a new piece of jewelry on her left hand, my own life wouldn’t be quite so far behind.
My rust-colored hair was gathered in a loose bun at the nape of my neck. I had been going for elegant, but now it just irritated the delicate skin there, begging me to throw it up in a high ponytail.
“Are you planning on going in, or were you going to watch the party from here?” A deep, cheerful voice interrupted my thoughts.
Oliver, Nathan’s brother, strode up to where I stood rooted in place. His light blue button-down shirt could have used one more pass with an iron, and his hair was still damp from the shower he’d likely just taken after climbing, or mountain biking, or whatever it was he’d gotten up to today. But all he had to do was flash his megawatt smile and he looked perfectly adorable. What must it be like to have endless boyish charm?
“I just got here,” I lied, letting him scoop me into his arms for a quick hug.
As Charlie and Nathan had become more and more inseparable, so had Oliver and I. We shared a near-endless amount of optimism, always eager to jump into something headfirst. Like that time we’d discovered there was an amusement park on top of a mountain, only a few hours away from Denver. We couldn’t get anyone else to go with us, but we’d made the drive the next morning because we were too excited about the prospect of riding a mountain-side roller coaster. Andit had been worth it, despite the six extra hours we’d sat in traffic on the way home.
“We had to circle the block to find parking, and you’ve been standing here the entire time.” Another deep voice said from directly behind me, this one without even an ounce of cheer. I spun around and came face to face withhim.
Harrison, Oliver’s best friend, smirked down at me, and I wished—for the millionth time in the year since meeting the man—that his smug expression and uncouth comments had no effect on me.
His tattooed biceps bulged out of the black, short-sleeved button-up he wore. It aggravated me to no end that he towered over me, even though most men did. But God had done too much when he was crafting Harrison. Sure, He’d given him a crappy personality, but there was still no reason for Harrison to have both that sharp of a jawlineandthat perfect of a body. Maybe he had a terrible smile, and that was where the universe had decided to balance him out. I wouldn’t know, because he’d never graced me with one.
“Harrison. Good to see you.” I smiled sweetly, but neither of us made a move to hug. Hugging was not the level we were at. I doubted anyone—except maybe Oliver—was on hugging terms with Harrison. And even then, I couldn’t picture it.
“Nervous to go inside alone?” he guessed. While the comment itself wasn’t obnoxious, and actually half-true, something about Harrison’s delivery made the tiny hairs on my arm stand at attention.
“Not at all.”
“So, you’re just practicing your stalking skills, and seeing how far away you can stand and still see into the window?”
I sighed with exasperation.
Oliver chuckled. “You two kill me.”
The twinkle in Harrison’s dark eyes revealed he found the whole thing amusing, but his amusement never felt like it was in a good-natured way. And this was definitely not Harrison’s way of flirting, no matter how hard Charlie had tried to convince me it was.
Even though a small part of me kind of wished it were true.
Harrison was so not my usual type, yet I couldn’t seem to get my primal responses to register that information. I would never call what I felt toward him acrush, at least not out loud, but my stomach did do strange flippy things whenever we were in the same room together.
I would never admit that to anyone. As far as anyone else was concerned, we didn’t care for each other. And to be fair, in my mind, I completely and totally didn’t. My body just never got the memo.
“I was just feeling a little light-headed and wanted to collect myself before heading in,” I said. There, that was at least a little closer to the truth.
A palm was on my forehead before I had a chance to react. “No fever. You feel a bit cold, if anything,” Oliver said confidently as I jerked away from his hot palm.
“I’m not sick. I must just be dehydrated or something.”
“Or something.” I hated the way Harrison eyed me up and down, like he somehow had any idea about the complex thoughts spinning around in my head surrounding today and the engagement. He didn’t know me at all. We were essentially strangers. He’d made sure of that every time he turned down any attempt I’d made to try to get to know him. Now we were just unwilling acquaintances, forced together by mutual friends.
