“It was an accident back in there,” I try to smooth things over.
“We’re a mess, Wilder. You, me, and Cash. We’re messy, and I miss last summer when it was just you, me and a bucket list.”
“I miss it, too,” I agree.
“I don’t know what to do with all of this.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
She exhales. “What if we were wrong?”
I frown. “About what?”
“What if we’re the assholes?” she rephrases. “We hooked up when Cash was in Europe, and I didn’t even feel bad about it. I just… we’re not good friends. Not to him.”
My head drops. She’s right.
Even if Cash broke up with Ingrid, and he left, I was still his best friend. And she was the person he was in love with.
Still is in love with.
That long happy life we want together, I’m starting to think Cash can’t be a part of it.
Not like this.
“What do you want to do?”
Ingrid sighs. “Find a white-haired scientist who built a Delorean time-traveling machine, go back in time, alter history so reality today is far less complicated.”
“Did you just tell me the plot to Back to the Future?”
She gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “Marty McFly never got it right. Why would we?”
“We can’t change the past,” I say. “We can only try to do better now.”
“I’m supposed to be the wise one here,” she grunts. “I’m supposed to have the good advice. That’s how it was last summer.”
I smile. “Maybe this summer, I’m supposed to be the wise one.”
“I hate that this summer sucks,” she sighs. “Isla’s going to be a single mother. Fanny is going on trial. Cash is meeting a long-distance pen pal and we’re having less sex than we’ve ever had.”
“It’s not all bad,” I say. “Except for the less sex part. That is torture.”
She purses her lips. “Let’s make that video in California.”
“Didn’t you say something like, ‘Don’t push your luck’?” I remind her.
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes. “I want last summer back.”
“I’ll see if I can find a white-haired scientist to make that dream a reality,” I tease her.
She reaches for me, hugging me tight. “We’re shitty friends, aren’t we?”
“The shittiest.”
“Do you think he’ll forgive us?”
I shrug before kissing her.
