Page 93 of Text Me Baby One More Time

Zach, the brainiac that he is, calculates this in seconds and his eyes show his surprise.

“That’s your senior year.”

“Yep,” I answer.

“Are you from here, Denver?”

“You know she’s not,” Delia says. “She and Monty are from Montana.”

“I’m…surprised they’ve known one another so long, is all,” he says coolly, and I know he has a whole lot of fucking questions to ask me.

If he ever gets up the gumption to spend more than two minutes in a room with me, I’ll gladly answer them.

“It’s a long story,” Denny says, waving her hand. “We’ll have to get together some night and talk about it.”

Was that an implication of a future for us?

“Well, this has been rather…enlightening,” Denny says, laughing. “But Shep and I have to split. We have a few best man and maid of honor duties we need to attend to before our phones start blowing up.” She gives Delia another hug. “It was good seeing you, Delia. We’ll have to catch up soon.”

Delia’s eyes slide my way again. “Yes, we will.”

My stomach turns, my pancake and eggs begging to come back up at the thought of Delia and Denny sitting down together at some point. I know for a fact Delia does not have a single nice thing to say about me.

Not that I blame her, since I did something really fucking shitty that I can’t take back.

Which leads to my current situation: a stilted relationship with my brother and his girlfriend—who, as it turns out, is pretty goddamn awesome.

I’m the only asshole in this situation. I know it, they know it, and soon Denny will know it too.

“It was good seeing you, Zach,” I say genuinely, because despite what I did to hurt him, Idolove him. I’ve always looked up to him.

He grunts in response, waving goodbye to Denny and ushering Delia through the restaurant without another word to me.

“Well, that was fun,” I remark once they’re out of earshot.

“Fun? Try awkward as hell.” She whacks me in the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me your brother was so hot? I wouldn’t have wasted my time with your ass.”

I laugh, shaking my head at her.

“I have questions, though. Don’t think I don’t.”

“I kind of figured,” I say on a heavy sigh. “Later, though, okay? I want to enjoy the rest of the day.”

“But soon, right?”

“Sure. Soon.”

I want to prolong this as long as I can, because I know once I tell her the truth, it’s going to change everything for us. Our versions of “soon” are drastically different.

The pit in my stomach grows. The moment I tell Denny about the dumbass thing I did, we’re done, and I won’t be able to blame anyone but myself.

I was a sleaze ball who did a really shitty thing. I can’t change that. I can’t take that back—though I wish likehellI fucking could.

“Before the wedding?”

I gulp and nod. “Before the wedding.”

God, I hate me.

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