Page 31 of Just Forever

“Uneventful as hell,” Kelly says, nodding at Rachel and Sawyer. “Did you hear? These two sold the house.”

“Congrats,” Lake says. Rachel and Sawyer have been slowly renovating a house that belonged to Rachel’s grandmother. “So? What’s the plan now?”

“Gonna buy tickets to somewhere warm for the winter,” Sawyer says, throwing his arm over the back of Rachel’s chair.

“Lucky bastards,” Kelly says. “It’s fine. I don’t like sun anyway.”

Rachel grins and sticks her tongue out at him. “I’ll think about you when I’m lying on a beach in Bali.”

“You’re a true friend.”

Lake laughs. The food arrives shortly after that, and we all settle into a comfortable conversation where we all catch up with each other.

At one point, I sit back in my chair and smile.

Lake meets my gaze and raises his brows at me. He leans closer to me. “You look comfortable,” he says, lowering his voice.

I shrug. “Life’s good. Things are going well. What more could I want?”

He makes a face. “Oh, good. You’ve jinxed it.”

“Idiot,” I say with affection.

He just laughs and goes back to his conversation.

By the timewe leave the burger place, we all have a few cocktails in us, so even Kelly has loosened up a bit. We walkdown the street that’s, by now, crowded with people who are also out, enjoying their Saturday night.

When we pass an open doorway that has loud music coming out of it, Rachel’s eyes light up.

“We should go there.” She grabs Sawyer’s hand and starts tugging him toward the door. “It sounds like fun.”

Sawyer just smiles and follows her without arguing.

I quirk my brow at Lake, and he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, fine. Let’s go.”

Rachel leads us all into a small, crowded bar. The place is jammed with bodies, but Sawyer takes the lead and pushes through the crowd until we find a table. The music from earlier turns out to be karaoke, which makes Kelly look around with clear horror on his face.

“Jesus, no,” he says. “I did not sign up for this.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Rachel says, pushing Kelly to sit down before she looks at Sawyer. “Can you get us some drinks, babe?”

“Coming right up,” Sawyer says.

Lake gets up too. “I’ll help.”

They disappear into the crowd, and when I turn my eyes away from where Lake vanished, I find Rachel grinning at me, while somebody’s singing a pretty decent version of “Island in the Sun” on the stage.

“Sawyer doesn’t sing, so I need somebody to be my duet partner,” Rachel says.

“Neither do I,” Kelly says, “so good luck with that.”

“Come on. You did the last time.”

“The last time I was drunk.”

“That’s the easiest problem to solve,” Rachel says.

They start to bicker, and I glance around the room, searching for Lake. There’s a bit of a gap between the bodies, so I find him standing at the bar with the drinks on the counter in front of him. Sawyer’s nowhere to be found, and next to Lake is a guy.

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