by Elle Kennedy
When she finally speaks, she throws me for a loop. “Why?”
My forehead creases. “Why what?”
“Why are you into me?”
If she thought she was clarifying, she’s dead wrong, because I’m still baffled. What kind of question is that?
Hannah shakes her head as if she’s also trying to make sense of it. “Dude, I’ve seen the girls you bring home or flirt with at the bar. You have a type. Tall, skinny, usually blonde. And they’re always hanging all over you and showering you with compliments.” She snorts. “Whereas I just insult you all the time.”
I can’t help but grin. Her sarcasm does veer into insult territory more often than not.
“And you gravitate to the ones who are looking for something temporary. You know, a fun time. I’m not a fun-time girl. I like serious relationships.” She purses her lips thoughtfully. “I never got the sense that you were interested in relationships.”
The accusation raises my hackles. “Why? Because I’m a player?” Indignation makes my tone harsher than I intend for it to be. “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s because I haven’t met the right girl yet? But no, I couldn’t possibly want someone to cuddle with and watch movies with, someone who wears my jersey and cheers for me at games, and cooks dinner with me the way you and Garrett—”
Her snort of laughter makes me stop short.
I narrow my eyes. “What are you laughing about?”
In a heartbeat, the laughter dies and her tone grows serious. “Logan…during that whole speech? You didn’t once say you wanted to do that stuff with me. You said someone.” She beams. “I just got it.”
Well, good for her, because I have no fucking idea what she’s babbling about.
“This entire time, I thought you were looking at me all longing-like. But you were looking at us.” She laughs again. “And all those things you listed right now, they’re things Garrett and I do together. Dude, you don’t want me. You want me and Garrett.”
Alarm flits through me. “If you’re implying I want to have a threesome with you and my best friend, then I can assure you, I don’t.”
“No, you just want what we have. You want the connection and the closeness and all the gooey relationship stuff.”
My mouth snaps shut.
Is she right?
As her words sink in, my muddled brain quickly runs through the fantasies I’ve had about Hannah these past few months, and…well, if I’m being honest, most of them haven’t been sexual. I mean, a few have, because I’m a guy and she’s hot. And she’s also around all the time, therefore providing me with readily available images for my spank bank. But aside from a few naked fantasies, I usually picture PG scenarios. Like I’ll see her and Garrett snuggling on the couch and wish I was in his place.
But…am I wishing I’m in his place with her, or in his place in general?
“Look, I like you, Logan. I really do. You’re funny and sweet, and you’re a sarcastic jackass, which is a quality I happen to love in a guy. But you don’t…” She looks uncomfortable. “…make my heart pound—I guess that’s the best way to put it. No, not even that.” Her voice takes on a faraway note. “When I’m with Garrett, my whole world comes alive. I’m so full of emotion I feel like my heart will overflow, and I know this is going to sound like an exaggeration or maybe kind of obsessive, but sometimes I think I need him more than I need food or oxygen.” She gazes into my eyes. “Do you need me more than oxygen, Logan?”
I gulp.
“Am I the last person you think about when you go to bed and the first one you think about when you wake up?”
I don’t answer.
“Am I?” she pushes.
“No.” My voice comes out hoarse. “You’re not.”
Fucking hell.
She might be right. All this time I’ve been feeling guilty about wanting my best friend’s girl, but I think what I really wanted was my best friend’s relationship. Someone to spend time with. Someone who turns me on and makes me laugh. Someone who makes me…happy.
Like Grace?
The mocking thought slices into my mind like a damn lightsaber.
Shit.
Yeah, someone like Grace. Someone exactly like Grace, with her Ted Bundy rants and her calming presence and—hello, irony.
I broke up with her to avoid getting into a serious relationship with her, and now it turns out that’s what I wanted all along.
“Damn it. I…screwed up.” I rub my eyes, groaning softly.
“That’s not true. We’re good, Logan. I promise.”
“No, I didn’t screw up with us. I ended it with a really great girl tonight because I was so messed up in the head about all this.”
“Aw, shit.” She eyes me sympathetically. “Why don’t you call her and tell her you changed your mind?”
“She kicked me out.” I groan again. “There’s no way she’ll pick up the phone if I call.”
We’re interrupted by Garrett’s voice from the hall. “Seriously, Wellsy, how long does it take you to get a glass of water? Do I need to show you how to use the sink, because if so, that’s just sad—” He quits talking the second he spots me. “Oh hey, man. I didn’t know you were home.”
I hastily slide off the chair and hop to my feet, but it does nothing to ease the suspicion in Garrett’s eyes. Which triggers a fresh rush of guilt. Jesus, does he think something happened between us? Does he honestly believe I’d ever, ever make a move on his girl?
The fact that I’m even wondering that tells me the state of our friendship is even more precarious than I’d thought.
Swallowing hard, I shuffle over to him. “Listen…I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick lately. I was…distracted.”
“Distracted,” he echoes skeptically.
I nod.
He keeps staring at me.
“My head’s on straight now. Honest.”
Garrett peers past me, and although I can’t see Hannah’s face, whatever passes between them causes his broad shoulders to relax. Then he grins and slaps me on the arm. “Well, thank God. Because I was seriously considering promoting Tuck to the number one best friend slot.”
“Are you kidding? Big mistake, G. He’s a terrible wingman. Have you seen his beard?”
“I know, right?”
And just like that, we’re good again. Seriously, chicks need to take a lesson from dudes when it comes to burying the hatchet. We know our shit.
“Anyway, I need to make a call,” I tell him. “Night, guys.”
I’m already pulling up Grace’s number as I dart out of the kitchen and head for the stairs. Texting isn’t an option. I want her to hear my voice. I want her to hear how agonized I am about everything that went down tonight.
To my frustration, the dial tone rings and rings and rings before switching over to voice mail.
The second time I call, it goes straight to voice mail, which tells me she most likely pressed the ignore button.
Crap.
With a crushing sense of defeat, I open a new message and shoot her a text asking if we could talk.
Then I go upstairs and wait.
14
Logan
It’s past midnight, and still no word from Grace. I’ve sent her three texts already, and now I’m lying on top of my bedspread, staring up at the ceiling and valiantly fighting the urge to send a fourth.
Three messages borders on desperation.
Four would just be pathetic.
Fuck, I wish she would text back. Or call. Or anything. At this point, I’d be thrilled if a carrier pigeon tapped its beak on my window and delivered a handwritten letter done in perfect calligraphy.
She’s not calling you, man. Deal with it.
Yeah, I guess she isn’t. I guess I really did blow it. And I guess I fucking deserve it.
I didn’t just lead her on—I led her right up to the point where she wanted to lose her virginity to me, and then I threw the offer back in her face and told her I was interested in someone else. Hell, I’m
surprised I’m not experiencing random aches and pains in my body right now. You know, from the sharp needles Grace is poking into her voodoo doll.
My phone buzzes, and I hurl myself at the night table like an Olympic high jumper. She texted back. Oh, thank fuck. That means she doesn’t view me as the antichrist—
The message isn’t from Grace.
It comes from an unfamiliar number, and it takes me a solid ten seconds before I’m able to register what I’m reading. No, what I’m seething over.
Hey, this is Ramona. Just heard what happened with you and Grace. Need me to come over and comfort you? ;)
Winky face. She actually fucking winky-faced me.
I drop the phone as if it’s a hot coal. As if the message is contagious and the mere act of touching the device it came on will turn me into a person as contemptible as the one who wrote those words.
Why the hell is Grace’s best friend hitting on me? Who does that?
I’m so pissed off that I grab the phone and forward the message to Grace without stopping to question my actions. I add a caption—thought you should see this.
And then, since I’m already in this deep, I send another one that says, Can we please talk?
She doesn’t respond to either. Not now, and not by the time three in the morning rolls around, which is when I finally drag my pathetic ass under the covers and fall into a restless sleep.
*
Grace
I wake up at five-thirty in the morning. Not by choice, but because my traitorous mind decides it’s time for me to wallow in misery some more and forces me into consciousness.
The humiliation of last night slaps me in the face the moment I open my eyes. The clothes I was wearing are still strewn on the floor. I hadn’t bothered to pick them up, and neither had Ramona, who’d come home around midnight.
“Didn’t happen. He’s into someone else.”
That was all the information I gave her last night, and she must have seen the devastation on my face, because for once in her life, she didn’t nag me for details. She simply gave me a hug, a sympathetic squeeze on the arm, and climbed into bed.
Now she’s sleeping peacefully, her cheek pressed against her pillow, one arm flung across the mattress. Well, at least one of us is going to feel rested today.
Despite my better judgment, I check my phone. Sure enough, there are two unread messages flashing on the screen. Which brings the final tally to five.
Logan must really want to talk to me.
I guess guilt turns some guys into real chatterboxes.
A smart person would delete the messages without reading them. No, delete his number from the contact list. But I’m not feeling too smart right now. I feel stupid. So fucking stupid. For inviting him over last night. For developing feelings for him.
For reading the messages he keeps sendi—what the hell?
I blink. Once. Twice. Three and four and five times, but it doesn’t bring clarity to what I’m seeing.
Hey, this is Ramona. Just heard what happened with you and Grace. Need me to come over and comfort you? ;)
My head swings toward Ramona’s bed. She’s still out like a light. But that is unarguably her phone number next to the time stamp of the text. Twelve-sixteen a.m. Approximately twenty minutes after she’d gotten home last night.
I stare at her sleeping form, waiting for the fury to come. For my insides to clench and my blood to boil with a sense of white-hot betrayal.
But nothing happens. I’m…cold. And numb. And so frickin’ exhausted it feels like someone stuffed sand in my eyes.
My fingers tremble as I bring up the next message—Can we please talk?
No, we can’t. In fact, I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. Not Logan, and certainly not Ramona.
I suck an unsteady breath into my lungs. Then I stand up and creep toward the door. Stepping into the hall, I sag against the wall before sliding down to the floor and drawing my knees up. My phone rests on my knee, and I stare at it for several seconds before turning it over and accessing my contact list.
It might be too early to call my dad, but in Paris, my mom will be wide-awake and probably fixing lunch right now.
The numbness doesn’t go away as I dial her number. If anything, it gets worse. I can’t even feel my heart beating. Maybe it’s not. Maybe every goddamn part of me has shut down.
“Sweetie!” My mother’s overjoyed voice fills my ear. “What are you doing up so early?”
I swallow. “Hey, Mom. I…uh, have an early class.”
“You have class on Sundays?” She sounds confused.
“Oh. No, I don’t. I meant I have a study group.”
Crap, my eyes are starting to sting, and not because I’m tired. Damn it. So much for being numb—I’m seconds away from bursting into tears.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about my visit.” My throat closes up, and I take another breath hoping to loosen it. “I changed my mind about the dates. I want to come earlier.”
“You do?” she says in delight. “Oh yay! I’m so happy! But are you sure? You said you might have plans with your friends. I don’t want you to come early on my account.”
“The plans got canceled. And I want to come sooner, I really do.” I blink in rapid succession, trying to stop the tears from spilling over. “The sooner the better.”
15
Grace
May
People say springtime in Paris is magical.
They’re right.
The city has been my home for the past two weeks, and a part of me wishes I could stay here forever. Mom’s apartment is in an area referred to as “Old Paris.” The neighborhood is gorgeous—narrow, winding roads, old buildings, cute shops and bakeries at every corner. It’s also known as the city’s gay district, and her upstairs and downstairs neighbors are both gay couples, who’ve already taken us out for dinner twice since I got here.
The apartment only has one bedroom, but the pullout couch in the living room is pretty comfortable. I love waking up to the sunlight streaming in from the French doors of the small balcony overlooking the building’s inner courtyard. The faint traces of oil paint lingering in the room remind me of my childhood, back when my mother spent hours working in her studio. Over the years, she painted less and less, and she’s admitted on more than one occasion that the loss of her art was one of the reasons she divorced my father.
She felt like she’d lost touch with who she was. That being a housewife in small-town Massachusetts wasn’t what she’d been destined for. A few months after I turned sixteen, she sat me down and posed a serious question—would I rather have a mother who was miserable but close by, or happy and far away?
I told her I wanted her to be happy.
She’s happy in Paris, there’s no denying that. She laughs all the time, her smiles actually reach her eyes, and the dozens of bright canvases overflowing from the corner nook she’s using as her studio prove that she’s doing what she loves again.
“Morning!” Mom waltzes out of her bedroom and greets me in a voice that contains the joyous trill of a Disney princess.
“Morning,” I say groggily.
The room has an open floor plan, so I can see her every move as she wanders over to the kitchen counter. “Coffee?” she calls out.
“Yes, please.”
I sit up and stretch, yawning as I grab my phone from the coffee table to check the time. Mom doesn’t keep clocks in the house because she claims time weighs the mind down, but my OCD doesn’t allow me to ever relax unless I know what time it is.
Nine-thirty. I have no idea what she has planned for us today, but I hope it doesn’t involve too much walking because my feet are still sore from yesterday’s five-hour visit to the Louvre.
I’m about to set down the phone when it rings in my hand, and I’m annoyed to see Ramona’s name on the screen. It’s two-thirty in the morning in Massachusetts—doesn’t she have anything better to do than keep harassing me? You know, like sleeping.
<
br /> Gritting my teeth, I drop the cell phone on the bed and let it ring.
Mom eyes me from the counter. “Which one? The boyfriend or the best friend?”
“Ramona,” I mutter. “Who, by the way, I don’t care to discuss, seeing as she’s no longer my best friend, same way Logan isn’t my boyfriend.”
“And yet they keep calling and texting, which means they both still care about you.”
Yeah, well, I don’t care that they care. Ignoring Logan is a lot easier than ignoring Ramona, though. I knew him for a whopping total of eight days. I’ve known her for thirteen years.
It’s almost pathetic the way everything went down. You’d think a decade-plus long friendship would end with a bang, but my showdown with Ramona was nothing more than a whimpering fizzle. Ramona had woken up, seen my face, and realized that Logan had forwarded me her message. Then she’d snapped into damage control mode, but none of her usual tricks had worked on me.
The Forgive Me hug? The crocodile tears? She may as well have been tugging on the emotional heartstrings of a robot. I just stood there like a statue until she’d finally grasped that I wasn’t buying the shit she was trying to sell. And the next day, I moved back home, telling my dad that the dorm was too loud and I needed somewhere quiet to study for exams.
I haven’t seen Ramona since.
“Why don’t you hear her out?” Mom’s tone is cautious. “I know you said she didn’t have a good explanation before, but maybe that’s changed.”
An explanation? Gee, how does one explain the betrayal of their closest friend?
Oddly enough, Ramona hadn’t even offered an excuse. No I was jealous, no I was drunk and wasn’t thinking. All she’d done was sit on the edge of the bed and whisper, “I don’t know why I did it, Gracie.”
Well, it wasn’t good enough for me then, and it sure as hell isn’t good enough now.
“I already told you, I’m not interested in hearing her out. Not yet anyway.” I slide off the pullout and walk to the counter, reaching for the ceramic mug she hands me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to talk to her again.”
“Aw, sweetie. Are you really going to throw away so many years of friendship over a boy?”