Page 34 of Ranger's Secret

The silence that follows is deafening. Maya stares at the phone like it's a snake that might bite her, then slowly looks up at me.

"This is from my brother," she says quietly.

I can't speak. Can't move. Can barely breathe.

"My brother sent you this message about..." She trails off, reading it again. "About sleeping with you."

"Maya," I try to cut in.

"How long?" Her voice is deadly calm. "How long have you been fucking my brother?"

The words knock the air out of me. I've never heard Maya use that tone before.

"It's not what you think,” I say, the lie scraping my throat on the way out.

"It's not what I think?" She stands up abruptly, pacing to the window. "What I think is that my best friend has been lying to me. What I think is that you've been sleeping with my brother behind my back after promising me you'd never even think about him that way."

Tears burn my eyes. "Maya, please let me explain."

"Explain what? How you've been playing the long game? How you pretended to be my friend just to get close to him?"

"That's not true! Our friendship isn't about him. It's never been about him."

"Really? Because right now it feels like everything has been about him." She turns back to face me, and I can see tears in her eyes too. "Do you have any idea what this feels like? Finding out that my best friend and my brother have been lying to me? That while I was worried about you being sad about work, you were actually heartbroken over my brother?"

"I wanted to tell you."

"When? When exactly were you planning to tell me?"

Her anger crashes over me like a wave I can't fight. I swallow hard, staring at the floor. “He kissed me a year ago. I ignored it. Ignoredhim, until two weeks ago. And then I couldn’t anymore. It dragged up everything. Feelings he’s had for me since the first time he saw me. Feelings I think I always had for him, but I didn’t want to admit it.”

The admission hangs between us—a grenade with the pin pulled.

Maya stares at me for a long moment. "Jesus Christ, Delaney."

She grabs her purse and latte. "You made me a promise. You swore you'd never think about him that way, and I believed you. I trusted you."

"I tried to keep that promise. I tried so hard."

"Clearly not hard enough." She stops at the door, her hand on the knob. "You know what the worst part is? It's not even that you fell for him. It's that you lied to me about it."

"Maya, please don't leave like this. Let's talk about it."

"Talk about what? About how you chose him over me? About how our entire friendship has been built on a lie?" She shakes her head. "I need space, Delaney. I need to figure out if there's anything real left between us."

The door slams behind her, and I'm alone with her words and the devastating realization that I've lost the most important person in my life.

I sink to the floor and let myself cry. Not for the job or the account or the career that's in ruins. But for Maya. For the friendship I've destroyed with my selfishness and lies.

One of the petals slips from the flowers Jagger sent, landing on the coffee table. Just like everything else beautiful in my life, it’s dying.

And it's all my fault.

10

JAGGER

The meeting with my supervisor went better than I expected.

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