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Billie nodded, smiling. “Yeah. I used to feel the same way about my grandparents.”
“Yeah. I thought Jones would never give up the garage, I don’t think we ever considered it as a possibility. But we wanted to open our own garage. We had plans. I was going to be the guy who spoke to all the customers and Morgan was going to handle the finances.”
“What happened?” Billie asked, her face falling just a little.
“Life. Not—not my leaving, although that sure fucking torpedoed any plans. But Morgan went into mechanical engineering at college. I couldn’t find a focus or a direction. It was a dream we made up in high school, how many of your high school dreams have panned out?”
“Well, one of them did,” Billie replied stubbornly, arching an eyebrow. “I got to fuck the hottest guy in town, the one I’d had a crush on for four years.”
“Four years!?” She’d never told me it was that long. “Holy shit.” I buried my face in my hands, feeling my face heat up. “You were really pining for my stupid ass for that long?”
Billie laughed, then paused as the waitress came up and we ordered. “You’re actually blushing, that is so cute.”
“It’s your fault,” I grumbled.
“Of course, I had a crush on you, Pike, you were the guy that everyone wanted to be, or to sleep with, or maybe even both. You were my brother’s super cool best friend. And you were always sweet to me. I used to do the whole stupid doodling our names together in my notebook thing.”
“Oh my God.” I started laughing. “Please tell me you have some of those notebooks around still so I can see them.”
“No, I burned them,” Billie said cheerfully and without remorse.
I clutched at my heart. “You wound me.”
Billie sobered up. “Look, sleeping with you… clearly didn’t go as I’d planned it that night. At the Christmas kegger. But I went for it, and it was an amazing night. And whatever else happened afterwards, as shitty as it was, I still wouldn’t trade it. And now, we’re here, and we’re giving it a shot. So… why not give it a try with Morgan?”
Whoa, no, no way. The very idea of that made my stomach clench instinctively. “Nope. No way. Morgan would never go for it.”
“You don’t know that,” Billie pointed out. “You’re asking me to trust you but you won’t trust Morgan? I know he’s making a lot of money off his job, like, he held a party to celebrate making his first million dollars kind of money—but he’s got no passion for it. He doesn’t like to admit it but he’s got so much less energy when he talks about it and his face kind of falls. It’s kind of sad, honestly. But y’know, I don’t like to say anything, he doesn’t really appreciate my opinion on it.”
“Billie, I doubt he’s going to be willing to give up his wealth and his damn cushy job to be a mechanic.”
“He wouldn’t give it up, no, but he could still help own it and give you the backing.” Billie leaned in, resting her elbows on the table. “Think about it, Pike. He gets to come in whenever he wants and play grease monkey, work on cars, have fun, it’ll be a good hobby for him.”
“Once Morgan finds out we’re dating—even if he was possibly willing to do something for me before that, once he finds out about that we’ll be at square one.” I was sure that with time we could win Morgan over but not at first. Not fast enough to get me the funding that I needed.
“Then we’ll just keep it quiet for now,” Billie replied. “Get the funding, and then after a bit of time, we’ll tell Morgan we’re dating—like we only just started doing it. He’ll have to accept it at some point, Pike. I’m an adult and I won’t have him running my life or treating me like I’m an object that belongs to him that you—that you stole out of his room or something.”
I chuckled at the analogy. “We won’t be able to hide things forever,” I reminded her. “Not in our community.”
As if to punctuate my point, the door opened and Amber walked in.
Ah, shit.
She made a beeline for us, grinning as she slid into the seat next to me. “Pike, honey, I do believe you still owe me a date.”
I looked pointedly at Billie, who was glaring at Amber.
Amber laughed airily. “Oh, don’t you two worry about a thing, you know I don’t care about this, really. Just so long as Daddy lets me date Chad.”
“Chad?” Billie’s nose wrinkled. “What kind of name is Chad?”
“It’s his name,” Amber replied. “And it’s a family name, too. Chadd Billingsworth the Third.”
Billie looked like she was struggling not to choke on her own laughter. “Well, who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
