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“What are you talking about?” I see the wheels turning in her head, and her curious look turns to one of downright confusion. “You know this whole town?”
I nod. “Not just the town, but a lot of the people, too.”
“Oh.” She takes a sip from her glass of wine, bobbing her head side to side like she’s processing my words. “Next, you’re going to tell me that you and Sisi were actually childhood best friends?”
I shrug innocently, trying to muster an apologetic smile, and her eyes widen. “No! That was a joke. Are you serious?”
I close my eyes and nod again. When I look back at her, she’s still staring at me in stunned disbelief.
“Please, don’t be mad?” I say, reaching across the table and holding her wrist.
Her shoulders slump, and she shakes her head. For once, I can’t read my best friend. My heart fills with dread because she’s meant the world to me for so long. I need her to know this was never about keeping things from her. This was always about protecting myself, and the pain this town caused me.
She slips her wrist from my grip, giving my hand a quick squeeze before taking a very long gulp of her wine.
“This was always something I wanted to leave behind, but it became harder and harder to keep it from you. Like you always say, the universe has a way of telling us when we need to do something. You met TJ, who introduced you to Sutton Sterling, and then you get invited to his little sister’s wedding, come here, meet Sisi, and then my van, and…” I groan in frustration and bury my face in my palms before looking back at her. “I never wanted my past to define me. It was such a hard part of my life, and it was so freaking painful. Between having so many people here turning their back on my family and a traumatic breakup with an asshole ex, I needed a clean slate. I needed to find myself, and then you showed up in my life and were so optimistic and supportive. I didn’t want my past to ruin my future, which is why I never wanted to go back and have it taint our friendship. I don’t know what else to say except I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
I stop rambling when she sets her glass down and rests her hand on top of mine.
“Josie. I get it.” She sighs and grabs the bottle of wine with her other hand. Yanking the cork out with her teeth in a way that’s equally her, and equally unladylike, she tops off both of our glasses. “If anyone understands needing to redefine yourself, it’s me. I remember living in both of my older brothers’ shadows—in Jackson with Tanner, and in Park City with Clay—on top of being the girl that survived a horrible car accident.”
Our eyes meet, and I feel the instant relief when she smiles back at me. “You’re not mad?” I ask hopefully.
She huffs a laugh and looks off into the night sky, gesturing with her hands and wine glass. “Maybe a little. I do kind of feel like an idiot now. At the wedding, and in Jackson, I was blabbing on about how great my friend Josie is, and how much everyone would love her. Little did I know, you all already knew each other. Like, really? So you’ve known Sutton this whole time, too?”
“Yeah. I’ve known him just as long as I’ve known Sisi. Again, I’m sorry, but look on the bright side. At least you were telling them how awesome I was and found another place for us to do karaoke.” I flash another innocent smile at her, but she playfully glares back at me. “Okay. Too soon for jokes? Got it.”
“Not yet,” she says, “but maybe soon.”
“Are we cool then?”
“Yeah, we will be.” She nods and looks toward the neon vacancy sign glowing in the dark. “Especially if we go inside and get some of that pizza. Your girl has been in a van for ten hours and is hangry.”
My stomach growls, and I chuckle. “Yeah, food does sound good.” I push my chair back from the table, and we both stand.
She grabs the bottle of wine and her glass, before starting back for the lobby. I follow at her side, flooded with relief that she seems to understand where I’m coming from, and why this was so important to me, even if it was eating me alive to keep it from her.
“About this asshole ex… Is he still around?”
I shake my head. “Oh no. We’re not having that conversation tonight over wine. That is going to require tequila.”
She hums to herself. “Too bad. I might forgive you faster if you’d give me the juicy details.”
CHAPTER 13
SLY
Surprise Me
The smooth shaft glistens in my hand. Each stroke in my tightly clenched fist gets me one step closer to the result I’ve been working toward for what seems like forever. I don’t care if no one is ever going to see the underside of Mrs. Johansson’s minivan—every surface I’ve worked on is going to be spotless—including the axle that I rebuilt after she hit a pothole at god only knows what speed for at least the dozenth time.
My mind has been a mess since I saw Josie in the pool the other afternoon. I don’t care if she was neck deep in the water and hardly spoke to me. My thoughts have drifted off an unhealthy number of times to what her body would look like now in a tiny bikini. Those red straps on her bare shoulders—a shade of crimson darker than her hair—have driven me nuts.
I’ve tried resorting to one of my go-to ways to clear my mind since then, which is obsessively cleaning and detailing the cars I’m working on—whether it’s a customer’s or my own. That’s normally enough of a distraction that I can tune out the noise around me, but judging by the blisters forming on my hands after two days of doing this, it’s obviously not working.
In a different timeline, or parallel universe, where I wouldn’t have fucked things up a decade ago, I’d still be with her. Instead, I live in this shitty reality where she’s entirely off limits.
Sisi and Josie are patching things up, and frankly, my sister needs a friend. I don’t want my selfish, foolish ideas to get in the way of their friendship—again. That might be a moot point anyway because Josie has made it clear she’s not interested in talking to me more than she has to—exchanging only simple pleasantries other than when she touched my face—which I have to assume was the tequila talking.
