Most importantly, why did I care so much? Mae was my friend. She’d always be just a friend, having made it abundantly clear, more than once, “a guy like me was the last one on the planet she’d ever date.” Not that I blamed her. My track record with women didn’t exactly align with being the relationship type. It’s why I made the pact. Mason and Parker might have fallen, but Cole and I would hold true.
Fact was, I should be happy for my friend. That Mae had found the guy of her dreams.
But I wasn’t.
Not even a little.
4
MAE
“Mae?” My mom’s voice accompanied her knock at my door.
“Come in,” I yelled from the small bathroom adjacent to my bedroom, as best I could with a mouth full of toothpaste. It had been a rough morning. After drinking way too much with Jules, I’d passed out at her house and only stumbled into my own a half hour ago. Showering and changing into my favorite old sweats and tee, I felt marginally better than I had twenty-four hours ago, flying across the Atlantic with my tail between my legs.
Closer to thirty than twenty. No job. No fiancé. No future plans, back in my parents’ home.
Yeah, maybe not all that much better.
“Hey, sweetie. Beck’s downstairs. Should I send him up?”
Spitting out toothpaste and rinsing my mouth, I proceeded to brush my hair.
“Sh—” I caught myself. “Shoot. I never texted him back. Yeah, tell him to come up.”
“I’ll make some extra eggs. Does he still only eat them with cheese?”
Good question. “I think so, yeah. Knowing him.”
Beck ate like a twelve-year-old boy. It had always been a joke between us, me getting him to try new things and Beck resisting. In my opinion, it was just one more way to give his parents the middle finger. He lived to embody the opposite of pretentious, of everything he thought they stood for, to a fault.
I finished brushing and braiding my wet hair, bending down to grab the brush I’d knocked onto the floor. When I stood up, my reflection wasn’t the only one in the mirror. As it always did when Beck was around, my stomach did a little flip seeing him. Beck leaned against the door frame, dressed in a pair of jeans and navy tee. His floppy dirty-blond hair was longer than usual and though I couldn’t see them clearly from this angle, a pair of light brown eyes stared at me in the mirror.
Impossibly handsome. A rogue of the first order. Jokester. Serial dater. And my oldest friend. I spun around, straight into his tattooed arms. Beck held on to me, smelling just like I remembered. Woodsy and clean, he was like breathing in comfort and safety.
I should have called him. Told him weeks ago. But every time I thought of it, saying the words out loud made it seem so real. When I finally told my parents, I’d broken down like the old pickup Beck bought and relished parking in his parents’ driveway, one of many things he’d done to send them over the edge.
Not that they didn’t have it coming. But still.
“Hey.” He pulled back, looking down at me. “What’s the matter?”
I swallowed, trying to find the words.
“Mae?”
I could see them now. Beck said he had hazel eyes, but I never saw blue or green flecks in them. Just various shades of brown, or maybe gold. They were usually lit up as he delivered a joke or busted someone’s ass. But now they were filled with concern.
I didn’t want to leave the safety of his arms just yet, so instead of responding I stood there, staring up at him. I always fancied Beck was the older brother I never had. After I was born, Mom’s ovarian cancer dashed her hopes for more kids.
Except… my feelings for him had never been completely sisterly.
Acknowledging I was making it awkward, I pulled away, headed to my bed, and flopped dramatically down onto it, wishing I could stay in its cocoon of goose-down softness forever. Beck sat on the edge of the bed, as he’d done a million times growing up.
I stared up at the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stars were still stuck there from my celestial phase. It was easier to talk to them.
“I’m sorry for not texting back. I was at Jules’s and crashed there. And never plugged in my phone.”
Pulling myself upright, I propped two pillows on the headboard and sat cross-legged against them.
