If it’s not Spencer, it’s never going to work.
And it can’t ever be Spencer.
Chapter 3
“WAIT, VIOLET IS GETTING MARRIED?” Spencer interrupts, tone so outraged it teases a grin from me, despite all the shit I’m still trying to sort through. “Is it that snowboarder from winter break?”
“How the hell do you know my sister is dating someone and I don’t?” I demand.
Spencer waves a hand. “She has Facebook, dude. You’re a goddamn hermit.”
I can’t exactly argue with that. “I, uh, I think it is the snowboarder.”
Spencer flops back on the couch, his expression discontent. “Dammit.”
“Do we not like him?”
“Oh, no, you’ll love him. He’s kinda fantastic for Vi. Even tempered, nice—he balances her. And he’s not just a snowboarder. He’s got a good job,” Spencer adds, rolling his beer restlessly in his palms. “Think he’s in accounting. Respectable as shit.”
I perk up a little, pleased. “Then why don’t we like him?”
“Because you’ll love him,” Spencer says, flailing a little. He pushes his glasses up his nose and glares at me. “You aren’t allowed to ditch me on the bunny slopes next time we go skiing with your family just because Danny can do the big boy slopes.”
I roll my eyes and give Spencer a smile that feels too sappy and fond for a friend. “Don’t be an idiot. I don’t go skiing to hang out with my sister’s boyfriend.”
Spencer gives me a hard look. “So why is this such a big deal? Is it the Mason thing?”
I shrug. I don’t know how to put into words everything that going home means, why it’s tripping me up so much. I try anyway.
“It’s like—when you go back to Helen, it’s weird, right? It doesn’t fit right. It feels like it should and you try to make it fit, but it’s like a shoe that’s too small—it pinches and digs and rubs you a little raw in places.”
Spencer squints at me. “Mason is a too small shoe?”
I nod and hold up a finger. “A too small shoe with a tack in the bottom that digs every time I put my foot down.”
Spencer’s eyes widen and I run that metaphor over in my head again. I think it’s probably losing the thread of coherency, but then, I’m slumped on the couch with my best friend, and it feels like things are gonna be ok, even though I know my life is imploding a little.
“You wanna tell me about the tack that’s stabbing you?” Spencer asks. He can’t get the curiosity out of his voice, but it’s not pushy and demanding, and that settles me a little, makes it slightly easier to open up.
“An ex. I had a bad breakup and it’s—part of why I left.”
Spencer is quiet for a long time, and I know he’s waiting, giving me the time and space to say more, to finish the whole sordid story. I don’t though—I stare morosely at my empty beer bottle and wish that places like Mason forgot the past.
They don’t.
“Ok. So a small shoe and a bad breakup. That’s not too bad,” Spencer says, upbeat. “You’ll be so busy with your sister you won’t even have time to worry about the shoe or the tack.”
I roll my head, staring at Spencer like he’s insane.
He might be.
Then again, I haven’t yet told him about the sordid cherry on top.
“I might have told Violet that I have a boyfriend, so I need to show up with a date.”
Spencer’s mouth drops open and his eyebrows shoot up, a manic kind of look sliding into his eyes, and—yep. There it is. The panic I knew I was right in feeling.
“Shit,” Spencer breathes.
I nod emphatically and Spencer lurches to his feet, wobbling a little, enough that I lean up and brace a hand on the sweet curve of his hip, steadying my friend—friend, friend, we’re friends—when he weaves unsteadily.
“We,” Spencer announces brightly, “need shots for this shit.”
He stumbles into the kitchen and returns with a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, then he plops down close to me.
Because Spencer is a shit, he puts on a rom-com and we work silent and steady through the vodka for a while, while Meg Ryan gets emailed and her bookstore closes around her.
It’s kinda depressing how much it feels like my life.
I can feel myself listing toward Spencer as the vodka dwindles away, can feel the pressure of Spencer against me getting heavier and more insistent against my shoulder. I need to get up, put some space between us—remind myself of the boundaries of friendship.
“So,” Spencer says, voice low enough that it doesn’t disturb the movie. “What’re you going to do?”
I shrug. “I dunno. I’ve got a little time, and Cat is digging up a few guys I could date for the weekend. But . . . It’s a lot to go from dinner to meet-the-family, attend a wedding, you know?”
“Why ask a stranger?” Spencer asks, biting his lip thoughtfully.
“I have to ask someone,” I say.
“But why a stranger?”
I scowl. “Because I’m single, and I was idiotic enough to say ‘boyfriend’, and I don’t think any of my friends want to volunteer. I mean, you and Trev are dating people. Asking Luc or Peter is a little bit too close to sexual harassment in the workplace for me to think about. That leaves Steve and—”
Spencer laughs, a bright happy noise that never fails to startle me. “You’d be better off taking Cat than Steve. You’d murder each other,” he chuckles, leaning further into me, amused and so happily drunk that I can’t help but curve around him, taking his weight and unconscious cuddling.
“Exactly. So you see my problem.”
Spencer hums thoughtfully, like he’s turning it over in his head. Even drunk and falling over, he never stops thinking. His mind is faster than I can keep up with, racing through ideas before I can so much as form even one. He rolls his head to look at me, offering up a smile so bright, it’s blinding.
“Take me.”
My head snaps around so quick I feel a twinge in my neck, but I ignore it, too focused on the words still lingering in the air, like a tease and a promise.
Take me.
“Spencer, I have to take a boyfriend,” I choke, scrambling to grab my beer. Shit. It’s empty. I reach for the vodka instead and splash some into the shot glass before throwing it back.
“I know, but it’s not like Ruby hasn’t thought we were dating before. Remember the first Christmas trip we took? She thought we were together until the day before we left.”
I remember that trip. It’s when my sisters fell in love with Spencer, and when I finally admitted to myself that whatever it was I felt for my roommate, it wasn’t just friendship.
“But we corrected her. She knows we aren’t.”
Spencer waves it away. “That was six years ago, big guy. So we weren’t dating then. There’s nothing saying that our feelings haven’t changed. We can totally fake it for a few days.”
I swallow, throat tight. Right. It’d be fake. Spencer has a girlfriend, after all, and he might be willing to live his life around mine, but he’s doing what he always does for those he cares about: pouring everything he can into the other person. It doesn’t mean anything more.
“I can’t ask you to do that,” I say, looking away.
“You aren’t,” Spencer says, grinning, “I’m offering. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it, dude. Let me help.”
I stare at him, eyes wide and helpless, and Spencer leans over, nudges me with one shoulder. “You can’t go home with a stranger, not to Mason. Let me do this for you.”
“What about Cara?”
Spencer waves a hand again, shrugging. “She’ll be fine. And if not—dude, come on. This is important.”
Eyes narrowed, I frown at my friend, but Spencer is leaning up, reaching for his shot. My frown deepens as he thrusts it into my hand. “It’ll be fun,” he says.
“I haven’t agreed,” I grumble.
He sighs, lowering the shot glass and giving me puppy eye
s. “Please, E. Let me do this. I want to.”
Fuck.
I’ve never found it easy to refuse Spencer anything, but when he’s like this—soft, sweet, and earnest—it’s impossible.
Helplessly, I nod.
I know it’s a bad idea, but before the dread can settle in my chest, Spencer whoops in victory, smile wide and gleeful, and the dread slips away.
Chapter 4
MY MOUTH TASTES LIKE ASS. My head is pounding. Distantly, I can hear music playing, grating on my senses. If Spencer is actually playing music, I’ll fucking murder my roommate.
The pounding stops, and then it comes again, loud and accompanied by a voice.
Fuck.
I stumble from my bed, past where Spencer is still sprawled on the couch, pausing long enough to cover the man with a blanket before I let Cat into the house.
She eyes me briefly before she makes a face. “You look like death. Go take a shower and then you can look at the pretty boys I found for you.”
I groan. Shit.
Cat stills, gaze narrowing in on me, expression downright murderous as she stalks closer. Her tone demands answers when she finally speaks. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” I defend, quick and weak. “I didn’t do this. It was Spencer’s idea.”
“And you agreed to it?” she snaps.
I can feel my face heating with a blush, and spell it out quickly for her, watching her face lose the dangerous edge and tip right into worry.
“Ethan,” she says, her voice tight and anxious. “You can’t do this.”
“It makes better sense than a stranger,” I protest.
“But it doesn’t make sense for you. You’re going to break your own heart.”
I throw a quick look at the couch, where Spencer is still sleeping, before I grab Cat by the arm and drag her into the backyard. She lets me manhandle her but shakes me off as soon as the door is closed behind her.
“You’re being stupid and reckless,” she growls.
“And you’re being intrusive,” I shoot back and she straightens, eyes flashing hurt. I sigh. “I don’t—I get it, Cat. I know it’s stupid. But so is taking a stranger. Spencer helps, and this is going to be hard.”
“Except, you know, you’re in love with him, and he doesn’t know, and this is going to be actual hell,” Cat says sharply.
Letting Cat know my dirty little secret, that I’m in love with my best friend, was never meant to happen.
No, scratch that. I never meant to admit it to myself. Cat is the one who sat me down after a gig, when it was just the two us, right after Cara dragged Spencer away. I remember her words clearly, blunt and straight to the point. She’s said, “How long have you been in love with Spencer?”
She helped me through the panic attack I had at those words, sitting by my side and getting me so drunk that I almost forgot it happened the next morning.
She ripped the whole thing open, forced me to look at a truth I would happily have avoided. Then she listened, as the years slipped by and I pinned for what I couldn’t have. We don’t talk about it often, but sometimes, I catch her watching me, worried, and sometimes she’ll show up with booze and get me sloshed enough to talk to her, tell her everything I don’t usually allow myself to think about, much less feel.
She’s kept my secret for the last four years. I’m not sure what I’d do without her at this point. To be honest, sometimes I hate that she knows, especially in moments like this, when she takes it upon herself to protect me. I don’t want it.
Cat isn’t an easy person to be friends with, which fits, because I’m not an easy person to love. She’s too much like me, too much like Ruby—abrasive, stubborn, and fierce when it comes to protecting the people she loves.
Becoming one of those few people was an accident for me. We’d both fought it, at first. I was still reeling from leaving home, at the time. I had Spencer and a crumbling bar, but no idea what I was doing with my life. Cat fell at my feet, then, almost literally. She never told me much about herself, where she was from or why she was alone. I wonder about it occasionally, consider asking her. Sometimes, when we’re wasted on cheap vodka, or when she’s strumming her guitar with Spencer muttering potential lyrics around a pencil, I’ll see something in her eyes that makes me wonder. Still, I don’t ask, and settle instead for nudging her ankle, catching her attention. The look fades into a glare and I grin back until she’s smiling at me, her ghosts whisping away.
The first time I saw Cat, it was raining, and I was taking trash out. The bar had been open for maybe two months and it was sinking, so fast I was already worried I’d end up having to close. And I found her, rain soaked and rat drowned, staring at me with wide, terrified blue eyes behind a nest of hair so dirty I couldn’t actually tell what color it was. I stared at her for a moment, and she stared back, frozen. Looking at her, all I could see was Violet, and my heart ached.
She skittered back when the door slammed behind me, and I jerked from my paralysis, shouting, “Wait!”
After, I wasn’t sure if it was something in my voice or just her own defeated exhaustion, but she waited. She stopped and came to stand, tiny and wet and resigned, in front of me.
I’d taken her to a hotel and paid for a week. Every night, after I closed the bar, I showed up at that hotel door, knocking twice before leaving a bag of groceries and asking awkwardly if she needed anything. She never did, and I left before she could feel too trapped, too threatened.
Every time I showed up, I expected her to have bolted, and I wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, except that I hated the broken defeat in her eyes.
Spencer took the news that I’d adopted a stray girl with the kind of snarky calm I expected from my roommate. A month later, she was living in our tiny two bedroom house, a solid lock on her door and an attitude that was beginning to rear its head. She was whip smart and stubborn as fuck, even as she recovered from pneumonia. Both Spencer and I got used to coming home to find the place clean and dinner warm on the stove, Cat curled on the couch with a book or painting her nails with the polish Violet had left behind.
The first time she stepped into my bar, she looked around and told me we could fix it, could make it amazing. That was the moment I knew the stray I’d unintentionally adopted was never actually going to wander away.
And she didn’t. She stayed. Over time, I watched, fascinated, as she bloomed into a stunning young woman with a vicious streak, overshadowed only by her love for her family, and a voice so sweet and smoky, it can bring me to tears.
Sometimes, she snuggles into my side and tells me I saved her life, and I lean into her, kiss her hair, and murmur, “Ditto.”
Spencer saved me, but so did the girl who walked in from the rain and never left, who became a sister I can’t imagine life without. The three of us became a family even before we became a band, and I can’t imagine life without them. I don’t want to think about what my life would look like if Spencer hadn’t shoved his way into my space and refused to leave, if Cat weren’t there to boss me around the bar and flirt with her boyfriend when I was too busy to make them stop. I don’t think about it often, because the idea is frankly terrifying.
So I do understand why she’s concerned. It’s who she is—caring for the people she loves. And she’s close to Spencer, but it’s different with me.
Spencer accepted her, even welcomed her into our life, into our house, but it was me who took her from a rain-soaked alley to live a life she was happy with.
I always told her I didn’t, flushing a little because I hated getting the credit for that. It was Cat who changed her life. I just gave her the clean slate to make it happen.
“I know what I’m doing,” I say now, blinking out of my memories.
She’s glaring at me, furious. “No, Ethan. You don’t. You never do when it comes to him. But usually you’re not quite this self-destructive.”
“I’m not being self-destructive,” I snarl, shoving off the porch bannister and stalking awa
y to pace.
Cat watches, unimpressed with my temper. “You’re always self-destructive with Spencer. You live in a fucking house you rent with him. Who does that, E?”
“Tell me how you really feel,” I snipe.
“I will,” she hisses, “And I feel like this is a fucking stupid idea. You can’t pretend, not like you’re talking about, not for four days.”
She goes quiet and I let that sink in a little, and I know she’s right. I just don’t know how to tell Spence that he can’t do this for me, not without telling him why.
Her anger is gone when she sighs, “Ethan, he’s gonna find out.”
“I can handle it,” I insist.
She throws her hands up, making a noise of disbelief. Wordlessly, she turns and goes back inside, giving up on convincing me.
When the door snaps shut and I’m alone, with no one to hear me but the birds, I look to the sky and add softly, “I have to.”.
Chapter 5
CAT STAYS BECAUSE IT’S A Saturday and we’ll end up together anyway. She pushes Spencer until, messy haired and face scrunched with sleep, he crawls from the couch. I smile as I watch the younger man blindly make coffee. It takes him two cups to wake up. He seems a little surprised by Cat cooking bacon and eggs, but he just grins and hops down from the counter, bumping me out of the way as he starts pancakes.
We don’t do this as often as we used to. Back when Cat was living with us, it was a weekend tradition. Now, we fall easily back into that rhythm, moving around each other and working together to cook, bickering and chatting, before we finally find our way back to the old, familiar couch.
With Cat squeezed between us and Spencer chatting away about some new gig he lined up for us, some of the panic I’ve been feeling since Violet’s phone call is pushed aside, and I allow myself to be happy in the moment.
We practice a little after breakfast, the kind of lazy playing we never indulge in anymore, not since we started picking up real gigs and Spence made some contacts at a few of the record labels, making it look like this whole band thing that we all love could be a real thing, if we work at it.
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