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“I know.”
“Hell, I would’ve helped you lie. Told you to pick one of your three boyfriends and use a single photo at least, to make things more convincing.”
I nodded again. “I haven’t exactly been smart about—”
“The girls think you’re lying by the way,” Bella interjected.
“About what?”
“About the whole thing!” she laughed. “That you made up some super-amazing guy, who lives in Las Vegas. A guy who’s handsome and charming and great in bed, yet someone you don’t have a single photo of.”
“Why would they think I’m lying, though?”
Bella threw back the last of her coffee and wiped her lips with the back of one arm… despite the folded napkin I’d provided her.
“Well for one they think you’re still hung up on Rob,” she said. “You haven’t dated anyone else. Not even casually, just to get your rocks off. They see you as lonely and hurting. Totally despondent. Yet the moment we leave you in Vegas, you just happen to stumble across Mr. Right? Someone none of us ever saw, ever talked to, or ever got wind of while we were there?”
“I stayed an extra week though!” I cried. “If I were making it all up, why the hell would I do that? Would I really risk Lilith’s wrath for—”
I stopped. Bella was nodding already.
“Well shit,” I said, taken aback. “You guys must really think I’m pathetic.”
“Pathetic?” Bella laughed. “Not even close. In fact, you’re my hero!”
“Sure, but only because you know the truth…”
“Relax,” Bella assured me. “The others had good intentions. They were just lookin’ out for you, hoping you weren’t too lonely. And they did feel varying degrees of terrible for having to cut our vacation short. Including me.”
I guessed that much was true. The girls did call, they did text their apologies. And they had rallied behind me just now, when I’d lost my job.
“So tell me again, one more time,” Bella said, her voice going lower. She was grinning evilly. “What’s it really like?”
I smiled right back at her, and launched into details. I kept telling her I was addicted. That no matter what I did or where I went, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the unspeakably hot things the guys had done to me.
Even so, that wasn’t entirely right. I was addicted, but not just to the sex. I was addicted to the feelings, too. To the affection and closeness of our tight-knit little relationship.
I was addicted to hearing about Corey and Brody’s successes, and about how amazing Mason was doing out in LA. What had started as sex had turned into full-blown emotional attachment. We’d built bonds, the four of us. Indestructible ties that bound us together through our everyday lives.
“You’re in trouble,” Bella said abruptly.
Breaking my chain of thought, I stared back at her and blinked. “Why?”
“Because of the far-away look in your eyes, Lauren. I’ve seen that look. I know that look.”
I laughed her off. “What look?”
“You’re in trouble,” Bella said again. “Not with the girls, because they’ll never know. Not with anything else either, because with your job gone, and your ex never coming back again, life is pretty straightforward for you right now.”
I looked back at my friend. Stared right into her devious, all-knowing eyes. They were eyes that were studying me closely. Examining me, but not judging me.
“So why am I—”
“You’re in trouble because you love them.”
Fifty-Seven
LAUREN
