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“You don’t know that’s what will happen,” Michelle replied, picking at her food. “He could have changed and you won’t know if you don’t try.”
“He left for four years, and he thinks we can just pick up where we left off? I don’t think so.”
Michelle gave a dramatic sigh. “So much for true love.”
I pointed my fork at her. “Stop being dramatic.”
Things only got worse when I returned home and found Morgan in the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” I asked. Morgan would show up for dinner, since he and my parents have always been close and like I said we’ve gotten good at acting like loving siblings around our parents, but arriving on the weekend in the late morning? That wasn’t like him. Usually he had some other social thing he was doing with all the other rich fancypants coworkers he hung out with nowadays.
I’d say that wealth changed Morgan, but actually, he was stubborn and controlling as all get-out before that.
“I’m here to see Mom and Dad,” Morgan replied. “What, a guy can’t visit his parents?”
“Sure.” I rolled my eyes and went upstairs to take a shower as Mom and Dad came back into the kitchen.
When I got back down, Dad was doing something out back and Mom was napping in the living room, leaving Morgan by himself cleaning up dishes from whatever they’d been eating. “Why are you really here?” I asked.
“I heard rumors around town,” Morgan said, and my stomach immediately froze, shifting into a knot. “About you and Pike being seen together.”
“Oh, please. He shows up back in town after not one word to me in four years and you think I’m going to give him the time of day?” I replied, drying the dishes just to give myself something to do with my hands, something to distract myself and keep myself from fidgeting nervously.
“You apparently vanished around the same time he did at Carter’s Halloween party.”
“And so now you’re keeping tabs on me. When I am twenty-two years old and graduated from college.”
“I wasn’t trying to, honestly.” Morgan did sound genuine this time. “I overheard some people speculating. I guess Amber Bell was talking about how you were being bitchy to her and that’s what started it.”
Ah, shit. I should’ve known that Amber would be involved somehow after the way I behaved with her. “Amber was being—Amber, and I was a bit tipsy so I got more snappy than I should’ve. She just gets on my nerves, always has. I hated the few times she came over because she was dating Pike.”
Morgan seemed to believe me, nodding along. “Everyone’s saying that—”
“You’re listening to the rumor mill?” I rolled my eyes. “Look, did someone say they saw us leaving together? Or making out? No, they didn’t. They’re just trying to find some gossip about Pike because he used to be causing trouble all the time and now that he’s actually being responsible, they don’t know what to do about it. Michelle told me this morning that she’s heard that everyone’s really surprised at how he’s turned out, and so I bet you they just want to cook up something so they aren’t bored anymore.”
“So you’ll promise me you’ll stay away from him?”
“Morgan, I’m not doing jack shit because you want me to. I’m not promising you anything.” I felt like Lizzie Bennet talking to Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride & Prejudice. “I’ve got no intention of dating Pike. Whatever you feel about what happened between us, I wanted it to be the start of something real. He just up and left without a word, not to me or anyone. I’m not letting myself get set up for something like that again.”
Morgan glared at me, but put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Yeah, that’s right buddy, know when to back down from a battle.
Even as I said those words to Morgan, though, I had to convince myself in my heart that they were true. Because the truth was that so far I had given into my desire for Pike twice now. I couldn’t be around him without doing stupid things to try and get his attention. And I still craved him, and in my deepest darkest part of my heart, wanted the things he’d said on Halloween to be true.
I just had to persevere and be strong, that was all. And hope it would go away in time.
15
Pike
I couldn’t believe I was doing this as I pulled up to, of all places, the goddamn Canyon Country Club. I’d never been here before and I couldn’t say that was a disappointment. I didn’t golf, for one thing. And I didn’t have enough money to afford the club membership, for another. It was one of the places I had left alone during my phase of tearing up the town because doing any big prank on there wasn’t worth the lawsuit I’d get fucking slapped with.
