Page 47 of Best of Me

Duke doesn’t say anything else; he simply moves over to sit next to me. Natalie and Alden go first, followed by Jenny and Nate, with Duke and me bringing up the rear. I bowl a strike on my first try and instinctually go to hug him, but he brushes me off with an awkward high-five.

The game drags on with Jenny peppering me with questions between turns. “Why did you really ride over with Duke?” “Is he why you’ve been so busy lately?” “If y’all are friends, why is he acting so weird?” I do my best to ignore her, either outright or through a subject change, mostly because I don’t know what to say.

Jenny’s on a mission though and refuses to give up. “What’s really going on?” she asks. I grab my ball from the return in preparation for my turn. I shrug, not trusting my own voice.

On my first turn, I knock down all but two pins, leaving a split. Miraculously, I knock down the remaining two, ending my turn with a spare. I join in on the cheering, despite my sour mood, lifting my arms over my head in a little dance as I spin to face everyone. My eyes lock onto Duke moving toward me and stupidly I think he’s going to claim me in front of his friends, so I rush to meet him, rising on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

Much to my mortification, he steps back out of my reach and busies himself with grabbing his ball, refusing to look me in the face. My eyes fill with tears and my cheeks flame.

I nod to myself. “Okay. Okay. I…I um.” I swallow roughly trying my hardest not to let the tears fall, but it’s useless. “I think I’m just gonna go.” I dash out the door, still in my bowling shoes. I’ve never felt like a bigger idiot than I do now. I thought we were nurturing something, that what we had was real. Now though…now I realize I was nothing more than a cheap stand-in for the girl he lost and the knowledge guts me.

I run through the parking lot, uncaring of how crazed I probably look. I keep running until I reach a little corner store a block away, where I order an Uber from my phone. Thankfully there’s one five minutes away.

As I wait, I do my best to harden my heart. I may have been the only one invested in our relationship, but I swear here and now, I’ll never be so easily fooled again.

chapter twenty-eight

Duke

I stare dumbfounded and full of regret as Mallory runs out of the bowling alley. I don’t even have a chance to go after her when Jenny’s on me. “What in the hell was that?” she shrieks.

“I…I don’t…fuck!” I scrub my hands over my face, wondering how things went so wrong.Because you’re an idiotmy subconscious whispers unhelpfully.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Jenny asks, her tone full of accusation.

Nate steps us behind his fiancée and I know his tie to her as her future husband far outweighs our partnership. Just like I know hurting Mallory hurts Jenny, and Nate won’t stand for anyone hurting Jenny. “Bro, what’s going on?”

I drop down into one of the pivoting plastic chairs. “I messed up.”

“You think?” Jenny sneers. I’ve never been on the receiving end of her anger and I’ve got to say, it stings. Though, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what Mallory is feeling.

Our game is as good as abandoned when everyone crowds me. “Start talking!” Jenny demands.

“I…we…we’re together.” When not a single one of my friends seems even remotely shocked or outraged, I add, “But y’all already knew that, huh?”

Nate shakes his head at me. “I mean, we didn’t know for sure.”

“But you just confirmed it,” his sister adds.

“Really though,” Natalie starts again, “the two of you drop off the face of the earth and didn’t expect any of us to put two and two together?”

“The real question is why y’all hid it from us?” Jenny taps her foot impatiently, not caring one bit that she’s put me on the spot.

“Because!” I explode. “How in the hell am I supposed to announce I’m dating Valorie’s twin sister? I mean, how fucking wrong is that?”

I drop my head into my hands, feeling like utter crap.

“It’s not wrong,” Jenny whispers. “Wanting her, loving her isn’t wrong.” Her voice grows louder and louder as she continues. “Wrong is making that poor girl fall for you only to diss her in front of your friends. Wrong is making Mally feel like a dirty secret. Wrong is—”

“I fucking get it!” I roar, jumping up from the chair. It quickly swivels without my weight in it, the arm knocking me hard in the back of my knee.Shit, that hurt!

This time it’s Alden who speaks up, which really catches me off guard. “Obviously you don’t, man, or you’d already be out the door after her.”

His words hit me like a bag of bricks to the face and without another word, I take off, stopping only to exchange my shoes. Unfortunately, the pimply-faced kid behind the counter won’t return Mallory’s since she left still wearing theirs. Whatever. Her shoes are the least of my problems. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if she’s even speaking to me.

I sprint out the door, my eyes frantically scanning the parking lot for Mallory. She couldn’t have gotten that far. She had less than a five-minute head start, so where in the hell could she be? My head moves on a swivel, looking out for any sign of her. But she’s nowhere to be found.

How in the hell could I be so stupid? I was so damn caught up in what our friends would think that I completely disregarded Mallory’s feelings—and let’s be real, hers are the most important of all.

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