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He must have sensed the seriousness in my voice. “Of course,” he easily replied. “Mom never takes the night off, so this will give her a chance to hang out with Edie and Kenz.”
I nodded. “Let’s finish cleaning up, and then we can meet up at my place,” I suggested.
“Not a problem,” he answered, not realizing that it really was a problem.
Chapter 22
The truth that sets us free.
Lars~
With everyone at their own homes, and my parents ‘forgetting’ that they had some errands to run, Talon and I were the only ones at my house, and though I had the privacy that I’d wanted, my mind was plagued with the worrisome that’d been in Edie’s blue eyes right before they’d left to go back home earlier. Without even telling her, she’d known what I was about to do.
“Whatever it is, just spit it out, Lars,” Talon drawled out. “The last time you looked this sick, you had barely escaped with your life after falling out of Gemma Rolland’s bedroom window.” I grimaced at that memory. “Her father had come home from work early, and you damn near broke your arm climbing down that two-story window.” Talon shook his head as he chuckled. “I remember you running to me and Hunter, swearing that Gemma’s father knew that it was you in his daughter’s bedroom, and that he was going to kill you, ending your life at the ripe old age of fourteen.”
“God, I’d forgotten about that.”
“Not me,” he announced, grinning. “It’s one of your greatest teenage hits.”
I flipped him off.
Letting out a smirk, he said, “Just tell me already, Lars. It can’t be that bad.”
“I thought higher education was supposed to make you smarter, not dumber,” I snorted.
“If you’re in trouble, Lars-”
“It’s not that,” I said, quickly cutting him off.
“Then what is it?”
As I looked at my best friend, I thought about paving the way with a lot of reminders of how much he meant to me and stuff like that, but what would be the point? All it’d do was make me look more like a backstabbing sonofabitch than I already was. It was insulting to highlight how important he was to me, then turn around and explain how I had betrayed him, despite all of those things.
Letting out a deep breath, I said, “Edie and I are dating.”
After a heartbeat of silence, he asked, “Edie,who?”
“Draven,” I answered, giving him a pointed look. “Your sister, Edie Draven.”
Talon’s hand went to the back of his neck, and I recognized the gesture for what it was. Talon always did that when he was trying to calm down.
Shit.
With the same eyes as his sister’s piercing me, he asked, “You and Edie are dating? Like…you would consider her your girlfriend?”
“There’s nothing to consider,” I told him. “Sheismy girlfriend.”
“Since when?” he asked, still rubbing the back of his neck.
“Honestly, it started at the beginning of the school year,” I answered honestly, recognizing the truth for what it was. “All that….me making sure that guys stayed away from her was more for me than it was for you. I didn’t know it at the time, but I know it now.”
“How, Lars?” he asked. “How did she go from being my little sister to your girlfriend? Hell, have youeverhad a girlfriend?”
I shook my head. “Edie’s my first.”
Talon locked his fingers behind his neck, and it was another signature move of his. “I still don’t understand how you guys went from friends to enemies to being in a relationship.”
“It just happened,” I answered lamely. “One minute, she’s annoying the shit out of me with her newfound independence, then the next, the thought of any guys even talking to her was sending me down a violent spiral, and I don’t do violence, Talon. That’s always been you and Hunter.”
