Page 30 of Playing With Love

My ass had barely hit the vinyl before she launched in. “I need to apologize to you.”

That was not the lead-in I’d expected.

“For?”

“Being difficult.” She shrugged. “For blowing off your attempts to clear the air. You’re right, we need to put all of that behind us so we can move on. We need to be in a place where we can work together. And me making snide remarks for no reason other than to be bitchy isn’t helping.”

She was totally off-base. I didn’t want to clear the air so we could move on. I wanted to clear the air so we could move on together.

I was smart enough not to correct her.

“Are you talking about Crystal?”

She flinched before she covered it with what was supposed to be a smile but in reality was a grimace.

“Yes.” She all but hissed. “I was totally out of line.”

“You already apologized for that,” I reminded her.

“We were interrupted.”

Right. Jessica had called again, then the rest of our day had been taken over by work. Even so, at no point had I taken the time to correct her assumption Crystal was in my bed.

“Is this why you asked me in? You want to talk about Crystal?”

Another flinch, this one she didn’t try to cover with a fake smile.

“No. I mean, yes, I wanted to make sure you knew I really was sorry for making stupid comments. But also, I need to explain what happened in Tucson.”

I leaned back in the booth, wishing we would’ve stopped at the bar on the way to the table. I had a feeling whatever she was going to say was going to require a stiff drink to swallow down the bullshit she was getting ready to feed me.

There was one flaw in her play… I knew her. Down to her bones, I knew the woman across from me. She was instigating this play not because she was ready to be honest but because she had no choice.

Honesty would require me pulling it out of her and the only way to make that happen would be to push her buttons and piss her off. Something I wouldn’t do in a hotel bar.

Therefore when I settled back with my brow crooked up in invitation, I said not a word.

“The timing was shit.” She led with the truth. Unfortunately, it went south after that. “When you called and asked me where I was, I should’ve told you I’d meet up with you after my case was done. You’d just finished with an assignment, I was in the middle of one, neither of us were in the right headspace. I left the next morning with my team, got caught up with work, then time got away from me until it was too late. I felt like shit for not answering your calls or returning your texts, then I just kinda thought it was for the better.”

That last part felt like a knife to the gut. The rest, well, that was all bullshit to cover her real reason for ghosting me. We knew the drill, knew how our jobs monopolized our time. That was the thing, the part about our friendship that had always worked—time and distance might’ve separated us but when we reconnected, we connected, picking up where we’d left off.

“For the better?”

Her gaze slid away and when she reengaged eye contact she was gone, my Lizzy was closed down. Agent Liza Monroe was now sitting across from me.

And that pissed me off more than the shit she was trying to force me to swallow.

“Let me get this straight, eight fucking years of friendship. Eight fucking years of us both making the effort to keep that friendship solid. Eight fucking years of us sharing our lives with each other any way we could, me making that happen no matter where you were, going to you so we could get face time, you checking in with me while I was under—and, honey, before you bullshit me, that took fucking effort, too. Untraceable email accounts, coded messages so I knew you were good and you could make sure I was the same. Burner phones that were more throwaways since for you they were one-and-dones, and you bought more of those fuckers to keep in contact with me than a member of a cartel. With all of that, all the time we’ve spent together, all the late-night calls, early morning calls, middle of the night calls—some of those lasting hours. Time we’ve spent sharing about our pasts, our lives, confessing our secrets, confiding in each other, you’re telling me none of that meant a goddamn thing to you. You, my Lizzy, my fucking best friend, the one fucking person who knows more about me than anyone else, is telling me it was for the better you walked out of my life then stayed out?”

Her face had paled, her eyes had turned watery, yet for the first time since I’d known her I didn’t give the first fuck she looked gutted. Not when the left side of my chest felt hollowed out. Not just hollow, but she’d been the one to carve my heart right out of my chest.

“Tucker—”

“Nope, don’t give me that placating, ‘I’m an officer of the law’ tone. Say it straight, Liza. Tell me why the fuck you think it was better to throw away our history.”

“Because it was time we both moved on with our lives. And neither of us could do that when we were holding onto something that wasn’t there.”

What the fuck?