Page 158 of The Friend Situation

“Damn. Your grandma is tough.” Weston smirks.

I narrow my eyes. “She didn’t give me a contract to get married at forty.”

“Touché.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“How about we trade? I’ll go on vacation with you and your parents, and you can meet the Jollys. Deal?”

He holds out his hand, and we shake on it.

“What was with the hesitation?” he asks.

“It’s just … I know everyone in my family will get attached to you. And if we break this off, they’ll never let me live it down.”

It’s the truth. Mawmaw will love Weston for his gentle heart. They all will. Even my asshole brothers.

He exhales, smirking. “You saidif.”

My mouth opens and closes. “I meant when.”

“No. No, you didn’t,” he mutters.

We tumble through unspoken words, lost together in thought.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I whisper, feeling my body temperature rise.

“Not a fucking chance, Little Miss Denial.” Weston shrugs off his coat and hangs it by the door. “Not a fucking chance.”

I kick off my shoes and move to the kitchen to grab some water, my throat feeling parched. As I glance at the piano, heat rushes through me, andFür Elisedrifts into my mind.

Weston watches me closely.

“Easton seemed shocked that you’d played again,” I say.

“It’d been a long time. Lena had forced me to stop.”

“You stopped painting because of her as well?”

He nods, a shadow crossing his face. “Love, combined with mental and emotional abuse, is fucking wild, isn’t it? I would have given upeverythingto make her happy. She isolated me from anything that had brought me even a semblance of joy. That woman was only smiling when I was miserable. She fed off my sadness and anger. When I caught her cheating on me the first time, it was in our bed. The second time, it was against my piano. The third time, well …”

“In your art studio,” I whisper. “You caught her three times?”

“Love makes us blind. I gave too many chances.”

His expression changes, and my heart breaks for him all over again. Even though he shows me his softer side, I think about how much this divorce has hardened him.

“I’m so sorry, Wes.” I move closer, wrapping my arms around him.

“Don’t,” he says, leaning his head to kiss my hair. “I don’t want your pity.”

“It’s not pity; it’s admiration,” I tell him, holding him tighter, repeating the same words he said to me not too long ago.

“You inspire me to reclaim those parts of myself that I thought I’d lost forever,” he admits, and I don’t let him go.

“I guess all that’s left is for you to paint me.” I smile, pulling away just enough to meet his gaze.

He kisses my forehead. “I already have.”

25

---