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“You’re really dumb sometimes.” She taps me on the nose, her pink lips curving into a small smile. She cups the side of my head and runs her thumb across my cheek. “We said we’d try and work past all our bullshit. That’s part of it. We have to accept each other’s pasts and move forward. You can’t change mine and I can’t change yours, so there’s not much point in getting all panty-twisted about it, is there?”
I cover her hand with mine and wrap my other around her neck. I pull her into me, so close that our lips touch, and hum low. I love the way she tastes. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s incredible.
“You’re right, baby girl,” I murmur against her mouth.
“Of course I am.” She rests her other hand at my waist. “I’m a woman. Sooner or later, you’ll learn that I’m right even when I’m wrong.”
I already know that. She was wrong to go along with anything more than just one night with me, yet nothing has ever felt more right.
“Do you think I should have asked him to leave?”
I rest my head against the back of the sofa and look across my apartment at my best friend. She pulls the wine bottle from the fridge and pauses, her fingers wrapped tightly around the neck of the bottle.
“You could have asked him why.”
Yeah, probably. “I don’t know, Day. I was shocked, y’know? I wasn’t expecting him to say that. And now, I’m wondering if letting him stay was the right choice.”
“Well, it’s tough. You had just agreed to make it work no matter what, but what he did was kind of wrong.”
I know that. I know, in my rational mind, that Tyler shouldn’t have fucked a student. It should bother me. It’s taboo. Frowned upon. Damn, it’s more than frowned upon. It’s fucking illegal.
I should have gotten up, asked him to go, then thought it through.
If only I were even a fraction rational around Tyler, the ‘should haves’ would have been ‘did haves.’
“Very wrong,” I correct her, taking a glass of wine with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it? I mean, it’s something out of a damn novel. He mocks my so-called porn on a page, but he’s a living fucking book boyfriend.”
Day’s lips twitch. “I’ve never been that kind of ‘forbidden romance’ kind of girl. I guess it’s because your dad is a teacher. Every time I tried one, I pictured him with his stripy ties as the main character.”
Well, that’s a visual I wasn’t prepared for. Much less needed.
“Thank you for that.” I sit up straight and take a long drink from my glass. “Moving on from that strange twist…”
“Yes, let’s.” She wrinkles her face up. “So did he just, like, come out with it? Or was there a preemptive warning?”
“There was a half-assed story but no warning. He just kind of…said it. Like, bam. Surprise!” I rest the glass against my chin. “I wasn’t expecting it. Tyler is the oddest mixture of bad guy and good guy, but I never thought he’d have done that.”
Day purses her lips, looking into her glass. “I don’t know if you should be bothered or not. Is that bad?”
No. Because I don’t think I am. I’m more pissed about the fact that I’m not bothered. Or that my ever-growing addiction to him makes it that way. Somehow, it takes the wrongness and reality of what he’s done and twists it into something that isn’t that bad at all.
That’s what really bothers me. That I can disregard something so critical. Something that’s made him who he is today.
But isn’t that exactly what he did with me? Didn’t he gloss over my teenage stupidity like it didn’t impact me at all?
Yes.
Oh, sigh.
Acceptance of the past is the key to facing the future. As long as I remember that, I’ll be okay. I think.
I hope.
I really, really fucking hope.
“It’s not bad,” I answer finally, slowly, tentatively drawing each word out. “I guess, in a fucked-up way, it’s kind of similar to Aaron keeping Naomi from you. You really shouldn’t have forgiven him, but you did. I really shouldn’t accept Tyler’s past this easily, but I have.”
Dayton’s lips tug up at the sides. “You know who forgives easily, don’t you?”
