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CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
Samantha
“Thanks for waiting with me,” I tell Lexi, wrapping my hands around the cup of hot cocoa. We’re at a café a short drive from Fletcher’s house. It’s the day after we had sex—the day after I experienced the most intense pleasure of my life, both physical and emotional. Now Fletcher’s going to tell James just how much I mean to him and wait for the fallout.
“It’s okay,” Lexi says quietly, seeming more withdrawn than usual as she stares into her coffee mug. “He said he’d call if he wanted you at the house, too?”
I nod. “Yeah. If James wants to speak to me about it, but I’m not sure what he’d say. Last night feels like a dream. It was so perfect. It was like we could pretend nothing else existed, but now…”
“It’s going to work out,” Lexi says, her voice confident, even if her demeanor seems beaten down.
“Areyouokay?” I ask. “I know it’s been a bitme, me, melately.”
Lexi laughs, but it sounds so fake. Finally, she looks up at me, only to turn back to her coffee immediately. It’s as if she finds staring into the coffee mug easier.
“Lexi?” I ask when she doesn’t say anything.
She swallows and looks up at me again. She doesn’t immediately turn away this time, but I can tell it’s a big effort for her. “I did something bad,” she says. “I should’ve told you back when this started.”
“Okay…” I wait for her to go on. When she doesn’t, I reach across the table and touch her hand. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not that bad. We can get through it together.”
“I don’t know.” She pulls her hand away. “You might hate me.”
“Oh, come on. I could never hate you.”
“Seriously.” Lexi’s tone gets cold, sending a chill through me. “You don’t know that.”
I fold my hands. “Okay, then lay it on me.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Well, you can’t bring it into the conversation and then clam up.That’sdefinitely not fair.”
“You’re right,” she sighs, leaning back as though afraid of my reaction, as if she thinks I’ll turn feral and leap at her. Feral like my man, panting, moaning, rushing toward a shared end. I need to stop. I need to focus. “Okay, fine. You know how I set you and James up?”
“How could I forget?”
“That wasn’t fair of me,” she said. “It was, well, sort of petty on my part. See, James and I dated a while back.”
“Youdid?”
She nods. “Just for a couple of months. It was before college and before we met, but lately, we’ve been flirting in the gym. Both of us are so stubborn. Neither of us wanted to make the first move. I could tell he liked me, and he could tell I liked him.”
“Wait.” I feel like I’m blinking about a million times in a second. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but this is slamming into me like a freight train. “YoulikeJames?”
She nods, flashing a guilty look at me. “He doesn’t normally act as douchey as he was on the date. Honestly, I think he did thatbecauseI set you up. I think he was trying to prove a point by being cruel to you. It’s my fault. I never should’ve done it.”
“Then whydidyou?” I ask, confused.
“We were talking at the gym one day,” she replies. “We do this thing where we sort of flirt, but we’re also kind of mean to each other. Do you and Fletcher do that?”
“Not really,” I say quietly, “but I know different people have different dynamics in their relationships.”
I never thought I’d use the wordrelationshipin reference to myself, yet it feels so right. A relationship is exactly what Fletcher and I have, as unlikely and impossible as it would’ve seemed when all this started.
“We were doing our usual routine. I got angry and told him that if he didn’t care about me, I’d happily set him up with one of my friends. He called my bluff, and that’s where the setup came in. I used you like a checkerboard piece. I’m a terrible friend.”
I sit back, trying to process what she’s just told me. “So it wasn’t about you wanting me to get out into the dating world? You just didn’t want to lose face in front of James?”
