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“Do you?” she asked quietly. She covered my hand with hers, and her stomach tightened.
Her body’s reaction was for sure from the near fall, but I frowned at her vulnerable question. “I’ve always got your back.”
She made a soft sigh I couldn’t decipher, but my body hardened at the breathy sound.
Once inside our tree house, I tried to tame myself. Flexed my hands and bit down on my cheek. We lay next to each other, as was our way growing up—arms and thighs pressed together in the small space—and I gradually relaxed.
“I feel lost,” she said quietly.
“Pretty sure we’re on my family’s property. North Carolina. Windfall, to be exact.”
She elbowed my side. “With my life, smartass. My future. So many of my friends have a five-year plan. They set off for college, knew exactly what they wanted to do. I’m happy in Windfall, love living here, but the rest…”
“You feel like you have no direction?”
She nodded with a sigh.
“That’s not a bad thing, Jo. I’m at college, but I don’t have direction. I’m going through the motions, getting a general degree. Biding my time until I work out what I want to do.”
“Not knowing doesn’t bother you?”
“Some days, sure. I feel antsy at times. Considered accounting like my father but hate the idea of the repetitive work. Investment banking or consulting is a possibility, a job where I can work with numbers in a more creative way. But nothing feels right yet. I don’t want to jump into something because it’s easy.”
“At least you know you’re good with planning and numbers. All I know is I want to work with people and don’t want to be confined to a desk job, but I’m not good at anything specific.”
“Sassing people is specific.”
She pinched my upper arm. “Say that again, Bower.”
I chuckled. “You’re a confident woman who will excel at whatever she chooses, Jo. Unless it involves being cool. Your childhood loser status will never be forgotten.”
We laughed about our lame Cool List, talked more about our uncertain futures. Discussed our love of Windfall, how much I missed it when away at school. What I didn’t say was how much I missedher. My best friend I didn’t see as much, the one who was in love with my brother.
After a while, we breathed quietly. Jo shifted, and the backs of our hands brushed—the tiniest touch, but my body crackled to life. The telltale zing she always inspired.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, mimicking my thoughts, her voice slightly shaky. “A lot.”
“You see me when I’m home, and you have Jake.”
“It’s not the same.” She linked her fingers with mine, shifted her attention to my profile. “Not the way I thought it would be.”
I didn’t know if she was talking about how our friendship had become strained—thinned with my distance and less time together—or that her relationship with Jake wasn’t what she’d imagined.
Feeling out of my depth, I fitted our fingers more firmly together, rolled my head to look directly at her. Our eyes connected, and I swore I saw desire in her searching gaze. The first glimpse of interest in all our years as friends. Unless I was reading her wrong. But her lips parted. Mine became achingly parched. Her chest rose faster as her eyes dropped to my mouth, and a rush of heat flooded my abdomen, driving lower.
Her phone suddenly buzzed.
She startled. Sat up quickly, yanked her hand away, and turned her back to me. “It’s Jake.”
Her sudden stiffness should have clued me into the fact that I didn’t stand a chance with Jo, but my mind wouldn’t quit spinning over her words.It’s not the same. Not the way I thought it would be.Did Jake not make her happy the way she’d hoped? Did she maybe like me? Had she wanted to kissmejust then?
For the first time since she started dating Jake, I wondered if Jo and I were meant to be.
At which point I morphed into my evil twin.
Our night ended abruptly. Jo said she needed to get home, but my thoughts kept running. Sprinting. Turning over her words and the tight clench of her stomach under my arm on the stairs. The sexy way she parted her lips while eyeing mine.
So I devised a plan.
