AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Quinn
Iglance down at my phone and see a text from my best friend. Ex-best friend? I’m not sure. I’m surprised to hear from him, to be honest. My heart flutters in my chest because I’ve missed him and the thought of losing someone that has been by my side for so many years has kept me up at night.
But the thought of losing Grey is worse. I had a choice to make and I made it.
“What’s wrong?” Grey asks, and I slide my phone into the pocket of my jeans. We trudged up the steep dune and walked down to Lake Michigan where we buried our feet in the sand and watched the waves crash against the shore. And now we’re on our way back to the car to head to lunch.
“Just a text,” I say, hating that I’m lying to him, but not wanting this to interfere with our date.
I just want a few more hours with him where he’s not worried about Joshua. I just want him to be happy. And now that he’s my boyfriend, that should be my priority, right? I am going to be the best fucking boyfriend he’s ever had.
“From who?” he asks, and ugh, why does he have to look so damn curious.
“Do I have to answer that?” I reply, and Grey bites down on his bottom lip.
“It was Josh, huh?” he asks and my heart sinks in my chest because he looks so lost, like he doesn’t quite know what to do.
“Maybe.”
He turns his head and faces forward, and my stomach churns.
“I didn’t want to tell you until later. I didn’t want it to ruin things…ruin our day.”
“You didn’t. This was…this was really nice,” he says and holds on to me a little tighter. “But I kind of want to know what the text said. Will make me worry if I don’t know.”
I pull my phone out and unlock it, handing it to him.
Grey takes it and glances down at the screen, his breath leaving him in a whoosh.
“He wants to talk?” he asks, and I nod.
“Guess so.”
“What do you think he wants to talk about?” he asks, worrying his bottom lip. I come to a stop and reach up, touching his cheek gently.
“I’m sure it’s about us. I don’t know, but I promise to tell you everything.”
Grey leans into my touch. “He hasn’t texted me.”
And there it is, the problem—the thing that sits between us so heavily—their fractured relationship.
“Yeah,” I murmur, not wanting to give him false hope by saying that he surely will. Because I have no idea if he will. I’m surprised that he’s reaching out to me so soon after our confrontation. I expected at least a few months to pass, for him to cool off before one of us reached out again.
Although, maybe that’s Hailey. Maybe she is working some of her magic. I can only hope. Out of the two of them, she seems the most reasonable.
We trudge down to the car, our shoes in our hands, and then we sit on a bench and glance up at Sleeping Bear Dunes. I wish that Josh hadn’t texted today, or that I hadn’t checked my phone until later. I just wanted a day together where we weren’t reminded of our fuck up.
“It will all be okay,” I tell him, needing to believe it. “I know it will. It might take some time, but we did nothing wrong…well, maybe we should have told him right away, but we had our reasons for keeping it to ourselves.”
“Yeah,” he says and then reaches down and laces his fingers with mine. “We’ll get through it. Together.”
He bobs his head, his throat working, and squeezes my hand.
I have to believe it. I will believe it.
I’ll do it enough for the both of us.
* * *
