Just as Gage leaned down to kiss my cheek, the door flung open, and I turned my head toward the light inside the house, accidentally brushing my lips against the mouth of the man who’d just watched me cry over loving my best friend. It hadn’t been intentional—Gage’s affection was only meant as platonic encouragement. But when the two of us jerked apart, startled by Coby’s unexpected arrival, I knew what it looked like to Coby. There was no way he would have perceived it as anything other than us trying to hide something from him. But before I could stop him, or explain that he hadn’t seen what he believed he had, he pushed past both of us and jumped into his car.
“Coby!” Gage dropped my hands and called out to him. “Coby. Man, it’s not what you think.” But my best friend’s engine roared to life, and he peeled out of the driveway like his ass was on fire.
My shoulders sank. I’d psyched myself up to have this conversation when I walked in the door. This had definitely thrown a monkey wrench into my plans, and quite possibly, the outcome, as well.
“Do you want me to stay until he comes back? Try to talk to him?” The frustration on Gage’s face matched that of my own.
I shook my head. “It will only make it worse. I’ll figure it out.”
“Ellie, promise me you’ll talk to him.”
“I promise.”
With a kiss on the cheek as he’d intended moments earlier, he said goodbye. And just before he got in his truck, he called out, “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, LeeLee.”
I gave him a half-hearted smile and a weak wave to acknowledge I’d heard him. I had no doubt he’d be there if I needed reinforcement, but I had to do this on my own. My feet carried me through the door Coby had left open, and then I kicked it closed behind me with more force than intended. I stopped in the foyer, catching sight of my tousled reflection staring back at me. I tried to smooth out the nest that had gathered in my hair from lying in the back of Gage’s truck, but I gave up once I saw my eye makeup smudged and my mascara blurred beneath my lower lashes. I groaned loudly, realizing my thoroughly fucked appearance had only further aggravated Coby’s misconception. When I reached the kitchen, I dumped my purse on the counter and slid my shoes off in the middle of the floor. Coby would bitch about my inability to put things away, but at least he’d be talking to me.
My head was pounding from all the emotions and incessant crying. I grabbed the last two Advil from the cabinet and a bottle of water to chase them with. When I turned to toss the empty container into the trash, my heart plummeted at the sight of the bouquet of flowers stuffed haphazardly into the can. Pulling them out carefully, I tried to revive the broken stems that seemed a pitiful metaphor for the current state of my heart. Unwrapping what was still left of the cellophane, a card fell onto the counter.
I wasn’t sure I could handle the message that might be contained inside. But I forced the tiny envelope open and slid the card out. In Coby’s unique handwriting was one word. “Ellie.” And a simple heart drawn underneath.
Staring at the piece of paper, I debated how to proceed. A huge part of me just wanted to go to bed and pretend tonight hadn’t happened, but the part of me that won out needed to know if Coby’s heart really belonged to me.
Me: Can we talk about the flowers?
Chapter 15
Coby
The woman next to me chatted away about something to do with her friend. I had no clue who her friend was, or what she was even talking about, but I continued to nod and smile as if I gave a crap. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure why I was still here, but I figured if I sat around long enough, drinking everything that had been handed to me, I would stop thinking about the kiss between Ellie and Gage.
Her lips on his.
His mouth on hers.
It sickened me.
While she rambled, I stared at my phone, the words long since blurred together.
ET: Can we talk about the flowers?
I’d stared at her message for what felt like years, although it had probably only been an hour, and I’d yet to respond. I had repeatedly tried to type something out, but no matter what words I used, none of them were right.
“You’ve been on your phone a lot tonight,” the talkative stranger mentioned. “Am I keeping you from anything? You seem distracted.”
Without locking the screen, I glanced over at her. In all honesty, she was beautiful—in the model kind of way. Taking notice of her now, I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d look like in the morning when all the dark makeup wore off.
And that thought made me imagine Ellie’s face when the sun first came up. She didn’t wear makeup often, and when she did, it was so light it almost seemed she wasn’t wearing any. Natural. That’s what Ellie was. I was sure if she’d been here with me, she’d find something about Barstool Barbie to envy. Yet if I tried to compare the two women, there wasn’t a single thing about this woman I would’ve wished Ellie had—other than the seat next to me.
“Just girl problems. Nothing big.”
Her doe eyes drooped in the way that said she felt sorry for me seconds before she draped her arm over my shoulder in an attempt to offer me comfort. “You look sad. What’s going on? Maybe I can help.”
I explained everything over two more drinks—even though I definitely didn’t need them. The alcohol made talking about it easier, but it hadn’t done anything to alleviate the pain that threatened to take me under. By the time I caught her up on my entire life with Ellie, from my earliest memory to my suffocating regret for not speaking up sooner, she almost seemed excited.
“She’s my crab,” I said before tipping my glass back to finish the rest of the drink. Raising one finger toward the bartender, I silently asked for another.
“Your what?”
“My crab. They mate for life. It means she’s my soul mate.”
The woman—whose name I still couldn’t recall, despite her telling me several times—tossed her head back and giggled while running a hand over my bicep. “You mean lobster. It’s from Friends.”
“No…” I narrowed my gaze at her, more so I could see her better, but also because she was wrong. “I mean crabs. You know, the red creatures at the bottom of the ocean with pinchers.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of what they are. But lobsters are red, live on the bottom of the ocean, and have pinchers, too. It’s a popular saying—calling your soul mate your lobster.”
“You’re not getting it. Ellie has red hair. She’s my crab.”
Rather than argue with me, she simply nodded and continued to touch me in one way or another. “Well, if you ask me, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
“That makes no sense. Plus, I don’t want to get over her.”
“Then maybe just use it to stop thinking about her for a bit. I can make it worth your while.”
I stared at her, wondering how in the world I’d gotten myself into this situation again. After I had been dropped from the team, it seemed like the women faded away. Then again, I wasn’t going out with the guys as often, either. And when I did, it was only Gage and Ellie. When Ellie was near me, it was like no other woman existed. Not that I’d been aware of that until recently.
“Are you trying to have sex with me?”
“If you’re willing…” She tried to give me a flirtatious smile, one corner of her mouth curled higher than the other, her eyes turned to slits, but it just made her look like she had no clue how to wink. And once again, my thoughts returned to Ellie, to how she used to make fun of me when I struggled to close only one eye at a time. “Listen, I get that you’re upset about your friends dating. I’m just trying to take your mind off it.”
The part that surprised me the most about her forwardness was she didn’t have a clue who I was. To her, I was just another guy in a bar, alone. A target for a fun night. I assumed she found me attractive; otherwise, I doubted she would’ve approached me the way she had. But I’d literally just finished explaining to her how upset I was over Elli
e being with another man because she should’ve been with me. So it confused me why she made such an effort to sleep with me.
“Here, let’s take a picture together. If nothing else, we can have it to look at after we go home…alone.”
I wasn’t sure how having my photo taken with her would’ve helped, or why I would’ve wanted to look at it after I left, but instead of arguing, I leaned into her and smiled at the camera on her phone. It wasn’t until after the fact that I realized it was more for her than for me, probably something to show her friends while telling them some fabricated tale of our evening together. Just as long as when she told it, I made it past third base and rocked her world, I didn’t care.
“What’s your number? I’ll text it to you. It’s a good one of us.”
Without thinking, I rattled off the number, and within a few seconds, my phone lit up on the bar with an incoming text. I grabbed it quickly, my heart tightening in anticipation of it being Ellie. Then my world crashed down around me when I noticed the unfamiliar number with the thumbnail image on the screen.
Stupid me. She had told me she was sending me the photo, and then I gave her my number, yet the second I received a message, hope blossomed in my chest, completely ignoring logic.
I stared at the two of us, both smiling like we were lifelong pals. It was amazing what kind of lies a picture could tell. To anyone else who saw this, it looked like we were having fun. It depicted the story of two people who more than likely would leave the bar and have crazy sex—the kind of wild sex I was sure Gage and Ellie had.
And thinking of the two of them together only pissed me off more.
He was supposed to be my friend. Granted, I’d never admitted to him how I felt about Ellie—probably because I wasn’t aware of the enormity of it until recently—so I couldn’t blame him. Although, that didn’t stop me from wanting to rip him apart limb by limb until he was nothing more than a life-sized version of the game Operation.
In all honesty, I had no one to blame but myself, and I couldn’t deny that. I couldn’t fault Gage or Ellie for giving into their attraction toward one another. I’d waited too long to open up about my feelings and what I ultimately wanted with Ellie. I’d wasted precious time, and at the end of the day, my hesitation had cost me the heart of the only woman I had ever, and will ever, love. If I was to be mad at someone, it’d have to be myself.
However, realizing that didn’t make anything better, nor did it calm the raging storm inside my aching chest. Allowing my anger to get the best of me, I saved the image and switched over to my text conversation with Ellie, ignoring the countless unread messages from Gage. I sent the picture, as well as a caption that read: Do you think she’s pretty?
“Who did you send that to?” she asked, glancing over my shoulder.
“My best friend.”
“Do you have to get his permission to sleep with me?” She kind of sounded offended, but I couldn’t be sure. My last drink had hit me harder than I expected and made all sounds swim in my head.
Before I could answer, Ellie’s response filled the blue box on my screen.
ET: I don’t have a clue how to respond to this…
It may have made me look like a complete ass, but I started typing, ignoring my nameless companion while she read over my shoulder. Granted, it took far more focus to respond due to the blurry letters, so even if I’d wanted to answer her earlier question, I wouldn’t have been able to—for two reasons: I couldn’t pay attention to more than one thing at a time in my drunken stupor, and I couldn’t remember what she’d even asked me to begin with.
Me: It’s simple. Yes or no. You could elaborate, but it’s not necessary.
Thank God for autocorrect.
“Why does it matter if she thinks I’m pretty. I’m confused.”
I shrugged her off while watching the dots dance on the screen. “It’s something we talked about the other day. I’m just curious what she says.”
With her bottom back on the stool, she asked, “You talked about me the other day?”
“Clearly not. I didn’t know you.” I jerked my head to the side so fast the room began to spin. “Wait…we just met tonight, right?” I closed one eye and squinted the other. “Or do we know each other?”
She must’ve thought I was kidding because she giggled—not even in a cute way, either—and playfully shoved me. “No. We don’t. We just met tonight. But you asked her if she thought I was pretty, and then said it’s because of something you two talked about before. So I was wondering how I fit into that.”
“Oh, yeah…that makes more sense. It was just about girls finding other women attractive, or checking them out.”
She started to talk, but the dots on the screen had transformed into a text, so I stopped listening.
ET: Where is this going? Why do you care what I think? Do YOU think she’s pretty?
Me: No. I don’t.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Her mouth was so close to my ear, and her voice came out high and loud, that I nearly went deaf. It was enough to call my attention to the fuming woman by my side, no longer perched on the stool. It was clear that Jilted Barbie was not happy.
“What?” Confused didn’t begin to describe my state of mind.
“You just told her you don’t find me attractive.”
“No. That’s not what I said. She asked if I think you’re pretty. I said no.”
She blinked rapidly, her lips pursed and nostrils flaring. “What’s the difference?”
This would’ve been the perfect time to have taken Ellie’s mom’s advice to think before speaking. But I didn’t. Instead of saying, “Pretty doesn’t begin to describe you,” or something from Gage’s playbook like, “Honey, you’re so fine you make pretty women look like gutter rats,” I said, “You don’t have to be pretty to be considered attractive.” The taste of my foot in my mouth didn’t mix well with alcohol.
With a few choice words—none of which I comprehended—she stormed off. At least her hasty exit saved me from getting slapped in the face. The words, “It’s totally okay though, because I also don’t find you attractive,” played in my head, and I couldn’t say with any certainty they hadn’t been uttered out loud as she walked away.
But I didn’t have the head space to contemplate it because another text came through.
ET: Why not?
Me: Her hair is the wrong color.
ET: What does that mean?
Me: Never mind. She just left anyway. Guess I shouldn’t have let her read my texts.
The bubbles appeared, then went away, then came back up again. Finally, after a hundred years of watching them dance in front of me, the screen dimmed, then locked. I set my phone down and found a glass filled with amber liquid sitting in front of me. I hadn’t noticed the bartender bring it over, but between the texts with Ellie and the animosity from Murderous Barbie—not to mention, my inebriation—I wasn’t surprised I’d missed it.
I nearly choked on Crown when my phone lit up.
ET: Why would you tell me you didn’t think she was pretty if she was looking over your shoulder? And are you ever going to answer my question about the flowers?
Me: You asked. I answered.
I completely ignored the topic of the flowers I’d tossed into the trash after she left with Gage. I wasn’t ready to discuss that and wasn’t sure when I would be. But drunk or not, that wasn’t a conversation that should’ve been had over text messages.
ET: Flowers…
She wasn’t about to let me off the hook for this one.
But I wasn’t about to give in so easily, either.
Me: Candy…
ET: ???
Me: I thought we were playing Family Feud. Things you get for Valentine’s Day.
ET: You know what I’m talking about. But that’s fine. We can discuss this when you get home. Any idea when that might be?
I glanced at the top of the screen to check the time, realizing it was after one in the morning. Ellie h
ardly ever stayed up past midnight on Fridays, too exhausted after a long week at school, but I couldn’t think about why she was awake. I wouldn’t be able to handle finding out Gage was still there—which would’ve explained why his calls and texts had stopped coming in.
And then I was pissed all over again, no longer remembering they weren’t to blame.
Me: Once I’m done entertaining the ladies.
ET: You just told me she left.
Me: There’s more. Don’t worry about me.
ET: Who are you with?
Pulling my attention away from her text, I found the bartender standing in front of me. She was cute, so I held up my phone and snapped a picture of her. Thankfully, she was smiling. I held up my empty glass—unsure of how I’d downed it so fast—and asked, “Can I have another, please?”
With a sparkle in her eye, she leaned down to grab something beneath the counter. I used the time to send the photo to Ellie. But when the woman stood back up, rather than refilling my tumbler, she set a bottle of water down on a napkin.
“What’s this?”
“Drink that first, and then we’ll discuss another round.” Jess, as her nametag read, winked before sliding down to the other straggling customers. Although, I did take note of how she didn’t offer them water. But Ellie’s text kept me from complaining.
ET: Let me guess…you think she’s pretty.
Me: No.
ET: And what’s wrong with her? Are her shoes the wrong size, Goldilocks?
Me: No. Her eyes are brown. I have no idea what size her shoes are.
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