“Not true. That never happened. And I would know since I was in town, and fancy pants over there was away at school.”
He hadn’t looked up once. “Yes, and I was the one she called to complain to since she couldn’t tell you.”
“You’ve never told me that.” The conversation shifted away from Peyton and settled between Beau and me.
“So? Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There are lots of things that she’s told you that you haven’t shared with me. That’s not news.”
If I could reach the damn cellphone, I’d slap it out of his hand like I had the stick of gum. I hated cellphones and how inconsiderate people were with them. “Name one guy she broke up with because of me.”
He couldn’t do it.
“Tommy Morton.” Or maybe he could.
I tried to think back to when they dated. “No, they broke up because she caught him with Melinda Beece.”
“Yes, illustrating his point that guys and girls don’t have platonic friendships.”
“Who else?” I demanded information as though I was entitled to it, all while he continued to mess around with his phone and talked to his lap.
“Devin Callen.”
“They went out twice!”
“Yes, because at the end of the second date, she had him drop her off at your house where she spent the night with her best friend.”
Peyton didn’t even blink as she listened to the two of us go back and forth; she was entirely captivated by our banter. She popped pieces of bread into her mouth like it was popcorn and she was at an evening showing of a box office hit.
I tuned out the sounds of dishes clanking and people chattering around me to hone in on this revelation. “Anyone else?”
“Kyle Perkins, Larson Camp, Greg Davis—”
“She didn’t go on more than three dates with any of those guys.” Arguing with the top of his head pissed me off. “Beau!”
His head jerked up, stunned I’d raised my voice. “Right, because guys don’t like it when the girls that they date have sleepovers with other men. Pull your head out of your ass, Lee. It’s been right there. Open your eyes and see it.”
“Why are you just now bringing this to my attention?” My tone had changed.
Beau was supposed to be my best friend. As my best friend, he should have found a way to let me in on this without violating Masyn’s trust or letting me spend years in silence.
“The opportunity just presented itself.” He slid his phone into his pocket—finally. “Lee, she’d call me late at night after you’d gone to sleep. She never confessed to having feelings for you, only that she wasn’t ever going to give up a friend for a guy. I think she would have said the same thing to anyone who’d told her they didn’t like how much time she spent with me. I wasn’t trying to keep pertinent information from you. But truth be told, unless you’re willing to stop messing around, I don’t think you should tell her.”
I didn’t follow. “Messing around?”
“With other girls.”
This was the kind of thing that irritated me to no end. Beau didn’t even live here, yet he wanted to give me advice on what to do. “I can’t tell you the last time I took a girl out on a date.”
“No, but I bet I can tell you the last time you let one suck your dick in the men’s bathroom at Sadler’s.” And he’d only know that if Masyn told him—not my finer moments.
And with that, I called it a night. I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet having Peyton hear it at the same time I did was a sober dose of reality I wasn’t prepared for. I shouldn’t be concerned with what she thought of me when she was leaving in a couple of days. I just knew the look on her face when we quit talking likely reflected the condition of Masyn’s heart.
And that nearly broke me.
Chapter Eleven
After dropping Peyton off at her hotel and Beau at his parents’ house, I made my way across town to Masyn’s. Peyton might not know our history and Beau might be full of shit, but I couldn’t let this keep going on. Two days without my best friend at my side was two days too long. The entire way there, I psyched myself up for what I wanted to say, what I needed to say. She could very well shoot me down, but I’d never know if I didn’t try. And if Beau and Peyton were right—although I wasn’t a hundred percent certain they were—then letting this go on only served to hurt the person I loved.
It wasn’t all that late when I got there, and all the lights were on in the house. Masyn was still up at ten o’clock. Even after several deep breaths, cutting the engine didn’t help calm my nerves before I stepped out of the truck. This should feel like a relief, but instead, I dreaded spitting the words out. The fear of rejection was real, even for someone who never had any problems attracting the opposite sex. It might even be worse because I knew I could have my pick of any girl in town—except the one I wanted. Since I never risked being turned down, I never had any hesitation approaching women. But here, sitting in her driveway, I had to prepare myself that she might not be interested in my confession, and I could be putting our friendship in jeopardy.
With one final deep breath, I opened the door and was nearly knocked over by the music blaring from Masyn’s house. It was a wonder no one had called the cops; I was surprised I hadn’t been able to hear it in the truck. Her angry hate lyrics blasted throughout the entire neighborhood, which was completely uncharacteristic of her. The emptiness in the pit of my stomach didn’t help carry my feet toward the porch, and each step I took was labored and forced. Masyn and I had been friends for seventeen years, and I was about to risk it all to relieve my heart of the pain it had carried by not claiming her as mine before now. Either way, I was moments away from sealing my fate—I’d either get what I wanted, or lose the greatest thing I’d ever had.
Instead of knocking—she wouldn’t hear it over whatever death-metal band she had playing—I pounded on the wood with my fist and waited. A moment or two later, the volume was noticeably lowered, and I beat again with just as much force. Each time my fist hit the door, another crack in my armor opened, leaving me more vulnerable than if I’d been standing here naked with a spotlight blazing down on me. The music turned off, and I waited.
The door swung open with such force that I half expected her to be pointing a rifle at my forehead when she appeared. She didn’t live in the best part of town, and I hadn’t bothered to text her that I was stopping by. It would have only given her the opportunity to tell me not to come.
I wasn’t prepared for the sight before me. Masyn had her hair secured in a messy bun at the top of her head with loose locks spilling all around her face, and any fool could see she’d been crying—a lot. All I wanted to do was scoop her into my arms and apologize for whatever I’d done, but she didn’t give me the opportunity.
The stench of alcohol poured off of her in waves powerful enough to knock a linebacker down. “What are you doing here, Lee?” Her words were slurred, and her eyelids fluttered closed when she spoke.
“I came to talk to you, since you’ve avoided me at work and refused to answer your phone.” The crease tightened across my forehead, causing my eyebrows to distort my line of sight for a moment. “Are you drunk?”
She flung the door wide open, inviting me in without issuing an actual invitation, and then turned away. “What’s good for the goose, is a gander.” Obviously, not all the pieces were coming together in her current state—or maybe that was precisely what she meant.
I wiped my feet on the mat, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me. “You never drink,” I accused, glancing around to ensure we were alone, “especially not by yourself.” I picked up beer bottle after beer bottle from her coffee table and threw them away. I needed something to occupy my hands and get me through this.
Masyn didn’t live in a palace, but she took pride in her home…and yet, this place currently looked like a shithole. She plopped down—or rather fell over—onto the couch. I stepped into her kitchen to drop the bottles into the trash, only to find a cou
ple of days’ worth of dishes piled in the sink and rotting food on the counter.
“What the hell, Masyn? This place looks horrible and smells like a barn.”
“I haven’t had time to clean.” That was the understatement of the century. “Toby’s been keeping me busy.” And now she was spouting shit just to piss me off. She’d been at her brother’s house all day yesterday, the dock last night, work today, and no man drank Amstel Light.
“Cut the shit.” It was hard to be upset with Masyn, seeing her broken on the sofa. “What’s going on? You’re lucky the cops haven’t shown up.”
She waved me off as though nothing I said held any weight or significance. “How was your day-te?” A deaf mule could have caught the hate laced in those words.
I released a frustrated sigh and kept from rolling my eyes when I took a seat on the coffee table in front of her. “I didn’t have a date, which you would know had you talked to me or answered your phone.”
Masyn poked her bottom lip out with exaggeration. “Aww, did Peyton stand you up?” Her lashes fluttered like Betty Boop, but nothing about her accusing glare or her position on the couch made it attractive or the least bit seductive. In fact, her posture looked painful, and it probably would have been had she not been so intoxicated.
“No. We went to the lake.”
“Our lake?”
What the hell? “Masyn, it’s not like that at all. I called you to see if you wanted to go—”
“That would have been fun. I bet she looks like every guy’s fantasy in a swimsuit.” She huffed right before she chuckled. “I could have looked like Punky Brewster next to Reese Witherspoon. I bet she’d even look good in a brown paper bag.”
I didn’t know if she was referring to Reese or Peyton in regard to the grocery sack, and I didn’t think asking would serve any real purpose. “Why are you so put off by Peyton? You two seemed to hit it off on Friday. I don’t get it.”
“It’s no big deal.” Those four words morphed into one as they rolled together, combining syllables and eliminating spaces.
“It’s a big deal to me. I don’t have any interest in her. Beau, on the other hand, I can’t speak for.” I shouldn’t have tossed out that last part. I just hoped it would help her realize I wasn’t interested in the girl from out of town.
“Pfft.”
Hesitantly, I reached out and took Masyn’s hand. It was cold and clammy from clutching the beer bottle. “Masyn…” My heart threatened to pound out of my chest, and I couldn’t get enough air. “It’s not Peyton that I’m in love with.”
“I should have known better.” She made a feeble attempt to sit upright without letting me finish what I wanted to say. “I knew when Beau called off the wedding everything would get messed up. He’s home. Petyon’s here. And my best friend is falling in love.”
Sober Lee didn’t understand drunk Masyn. “What are you talking about?”
“Peyton. She’s got both of you at her fingertips, and both of you want her.”
“I don’t want her.”
“Beau does.”
“So what if he does?”
“One of the Holstein girls is going to take him away.”
“From you?” I asked, unsure of where she was going with this.
“Duh.”
That was a response I hadn’t heard since middle school.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to talk to him when he was with Felicity?”
I did, although I wasn’t sure what that had to do with Peyton—or me.
“We had a code. If I wanted to talk to him, I had to send him a text. If he responded with a two, he couldn’t talk—you know because ‘no’ has two words. Letters—two letters. And a three if the answer was yes. And you would be half-naked in a bathroom or have some girl pressed against a wall behind the building.”
“Not following you, Masyn. I’ve never brought a girl home.” It was true, I hadn’t. I’d spent many a night at their place, in my truck, a bathroom stall, or even in an alley behind a bar, but I’d never brought some random girl into my house. Other than Masyn, there wasn’t a single female who’d ever spent the night, and not even Masyn had graced my bed.
“As if that wasn’t bad enough to watch”—apparently she didn’t plan to clarify that statement—“I had to deal with signals from Beau. Do you know how hard it is to be best friends with two incredibly attractive men? One of which you love, and the other you adore?”
The question was, who was who?
“Of course you don’t. You’re Lee Carter. Beau has the money girls swoon after, and you have”—she waved the beer bottle around in front of me—“all of that. And I’m left watching both of you leave me behind. And as many times as I’ve told my heart I can’t have my best friend, it refuses to listen.”
Maybe this wasn’t the best time to have this conversation. She was spilling her guts, even though none of it made sense and was harder to follow than a rat in a maze. But she was admitting things I wasn’t sure she wanted me to know.
“Masyn—”
She righted herself and jerked her hand away. With her feet planted firmly on the ground, she swayed when she put her elbows on her knees and leaned into me. Her warm breath tangled with mine, and the light overhead caught on her lips when she swiped them with her tongue. There was nothing I wanted more than to shut down her rambling and show her what I felt for her, except that I didn’t want our first kiss to be forgotten in a drunken stupor or regretted due to a lapse in judgment.
“I’m in love with my best friend, and I can’t have him. There will always be a Felicity Holstein or a Cynthia Green, or some other girl whose name I can’t think of right now, standing in my way. And I’ll always just be Masyn Porter—one of the guys.”
“Are you talking about Beau?” I wasn’t sure. Clearly, Beau had been engaged to Felicity, but Cynthia Green was the sticking point. I’d lost my virginity to her—which Masyn knew—but Beau dated her his freshman year, albeit briefly, when they both went to Atlanta for college.
She rolled her eyes, seemingly confused by my inability to follow what she said. “Yes.”
My heart shattered into a million pieces. It had never been a secret they were close. She shared things with him she’d never told me. But not once, in all the years I’d known her, had she even indicated a slight inclination toward having feelings for him. She hadn’t even cried or said she missed him when he went to school. Yet everything Beau shared implied she had insinuated beyond a doubt that she did feel that way toward me.
“Is that why you called him to complain about me? To have a reason to talk to him?”
Clearly, Beau had been wrong about her reasons for ending relationships and her need to reach out to him.
“I needed someone to talk to. I couldn’t tell you how I felt.” She reached for the stereo remote like she was going to turn up the volume to end the conversation, but I blocked her path and grabbed it first to put it out of her reach.
I wasn’t sure which hurt more, that she was in love with Beau, or that she couldn’t talk to me about it. “Why not?”
“Admitting you love someone isn’t easy, especially when they’re preoccupied by other people.”
Beau had never been with multiple people. He’d barely dated before he met Felicity. Even though I tried to follow her logic, it didn’t make much sense. I let out a sigh, hoping to exhale my disappointment and hurt with it—neither happened. “I wish you would have told me.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference. And how is that fair to you? You had your own things going on.”
“Masyn, you’ll always be my top priority.”
“Humph.” She turned her beer up, finished it off, and plunked it on the table next to me. “It’s okay, Lee. I see how you look at other girls. One day, I hope someone looks at me that way.”
My eyes closed slowly, while I tried to process everything dancing in my head. When I opened them, the brown eyes I’d loved for years were pooled with tears.
<
br /> “I’ll never look at you the way I do other women.” Not because I don’t love you, but because I do. “You have no idea how much of my heart you hold.”
She stood up and stomped to the kitchen. “Probably about as much as I do of Beau’s.”
The refrigerator door opened and closed. A bottle cap clinked on the counter and likely fell to the floor. And somewhere between there and when Masyn returned to the couch, she’d taken her hair down. It flowed in soft waves past her shoulders, and it was times like these it felt like my chest would explode, taking in her beauty.
As much as it was going to hurt to say what was about to come out of my mouth, I loved her enough to want her to be happy. “If you love him, you should tell him.”
Confusion marred her face. “I did.”
Either I’d missed something, or Beau had left out a large piece of information sitting at the table. “When?”
She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Tonight. Are you listening?”
“I was with Beau tonight.” There was no way he’d been texting Masyn at the same time he exposed me to Peyton. He was adamant that I tell her how I felt, man up. Beau never would have led me down a path of destruction intentionally. He had his faults, but he wasn’t a sadist and didn’t get off on hurting other people.
“And Peyton.”
I couldn’t figure out why we kept coming back to Peyton. “You realize she’s leaving on Friday afternoon, right? And going back to New York.” Peyton was a non-issue. Beau couldn’t date her, and I didn’t want her.
Masyn began to sway. And when she closed her eyes, all the color washed from her cheeks and was replaced with a hint of green. I didn’t have any idea how much alcohol she’d consumed tonight, but it was dangerously close to making an appearance. Before I could get up to find a trash can or carry her to the bathroom, her mouth opened and she leaned forward, covering me in everything she’d drank tonight. And it just kept coming, wave after wave. All I could do was hold her hair out of it. Trying to move her would only make the mess worse and leave a trail down the hall or into the kitchen that one of us would have to clean up. As it stood, most of it was being absorbed by my shirt and jeans, or pooled in my lap.
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