“Oh, so you just slipped on his dick?” She kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet under the blanket I kept on my sofa. “You’re so full of shit.”
“What? I had a lapse in judgment. I get one per year.”
“Ah, so you’re still full of shit.” She took another sip. “It’s okay, girlfriend. Good sex is always appropriate.”
“I can’t stand you.”
“You love me.”
Demi was right. I loved the hell out of her. We’d met during an Introduction to Fencing class right before my eleventh birthday and had bonded. While I’d enjoyed the sport, and had even competed, Demi had hated it. But we stayed friends, even after she’d quit and taken up swimming instead.
Earlier, I’d told Preston I didn’t make friends easily. I meant that. When I met Demi, though, she’d offered me a level of acceptance that rivaled my own siblings. She understood me and had never tried to change me. I felt comfortable opening up to her, sharing things about myself that I couldn’t tell anyone else. And vice versa. She was more than my friend. She was my sister, ranking right up there with Paityn, Blake, and Bliss.
We spent the next half an hour catching up from the last time we’d talked—which was earlier in the day. But it always seemed like so much life happened between our daily conversations.
“Okay, sis.” Demi folded her arms. “You’ve managed to avoid this, butdammit, I want to know. It’s not like you to backtrack, but you did with Preston. Does this mean you like him?”
“Today I did,” I said matter-of-factly. “You’ve seen him. He’s hot.”
“Girl, yes he is.” Demi reached over and gave me a high-five. “That ass.”
“And those lips.” Just thinking about his mouth made me want to kick Demi out and call him back over. “But he’s just a friend.”
“So, friends who fuck is a thing. We both have been there, done that. Yet, I’m sensing that isn’t the case with him.”
The fact that my best friend knew me so well was not shocking.Annoying, but not shocking. I wouldn’t categorize what had happened between Preston and I as a simple friends-with-benefits arrangement. At the same time, I was hesitant to call it something more. “Well, it’s not…” I let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t actually know what it is. But it won’t happen again.”
“I don’t doubt that you believe that. I’m just not sureIdo.”
I shrugged. “Well, watch me work. I know how to have sex and keep it moving.”
“Not always,” she countered.
I finished my glass of wine. “That isn’t what this is.”
“Isn’t it?” She hugged her knees to her chest. “Babe, you know I think you’re a rock star.”
“But…?”
“I also think you’re full of shit.”
I gaped, hitting her with a pillow. “Will you stop staying that? I am not.”
“Okay, maybe not full of shit. But you’re definitely running.”
“I told you, I’m not.”
“Zeke died.”
“Don’t talk about him.” I stood, marching back into the kitchen and topping off my glass again. I gathered myself for a moment. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about Zeke. It had been five years since the accident that had claimed his life and I still felt the pain as if it were yesterday.
Demi walked over to me. “Fine, I won’t say anything else—afterI say this.”
I met her gaze. “What?”
“You’ve been closing yourself off ever since he died. It’s almost like you’re punishing yourself for something you had no control over.”
My vision blurred and my chest tightened. And my heart… The mere mention of his name always seemed to elicit this reaction, this searing ache in my chest, the overwhelming despair, and the crushing guilt. Ezekiel Reid. Our relationship had burned hot and heavy for years in secret, then had crashed and burned because I wasn’t ready. I’d broken up with him the day he’d died in a car accident, and I’d regretted my actions every day since that fateful night. Because Ihadloved him, but I’d been too busy and too scared to do it publicly.
