Page 92 of Next to Everything We Wanted
“Yeah, right,” Forrest said. “Because you can’t feel your own feelings.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Guys, stop it.” I sighed. Telling my bandmates about the date had been terrifying after the drama that went down last week, and Forrest had attempted to be supportive. He’d reminded me to be careful, but he didn’t seem mad. Phoenix and Ellis were over the moon. And Celeste, well, I could see right through her faint smile. At least she was trying to be supportive too.
“So, you’re not going to give us details?” Phoenix asked.
“Am I supposed to?” We rarely talked about our love lives, mainly because theirs were non-existent while mine had been in their faces. Ellis had a few flavors of the week every now and then, but Forrest hated dating, and Phoenix didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.
“You are,” Ellis confirmed. “I used to tell you about my dates.”
“Yeah, no one wants to hear how you shove your tongue down girls’ throats,” Phoenix said.
“Doesn’t have to stop with tongue.”
“Just tell us how the date went,” Forrest told me. “But leave thedetaileddetails out.”
I snorted. “Well, there was no tongue. But she loved Sunset Melodies and doing karaoke.” I pulled the CD out of my large pocket. “She even gave me this playlist.”
“A CD?” Ellis beamed. “If that doesn’t say she’s totally into you, I don’t know what does.”
I beamed back. “She’s really thoughtful and funny, guys. And she’s very honest.” My chest tightened with the word.Honest. I wish I could’ve said the same about myself.
“See, I knew that it’d go well,” Phoenix said, his gaze turning to Forrest. “There was no need to get everyone nervous.”
“Yeah, because it’s my fault,” Forrest grumbled before facing me. “So, she still doesn’t know about your past?”
I shook my head, the sinking feeling returning.
“And do you plan on telling her?”
I bit my lip. “I tried not to think about it.”
“I still think you should tell her,” Phoenix said as he sipped his melted ice cream. “It might seem like she won’t understand, but I think she will. Sienna sounds like a real one.” He leaned in and whispered, “Especially if she has the balls to stand up to Forrest. I vibe with that energy.”
“I heard that,” Forrest said.
Phoenix rolled his eyes. “But seriously, I think it’d cause more damage if she found out on her own.”
I drew in a sharp breath, my chest aching. “What if she doesn’t? I don’t want to tell her the truth for no reason.”
“She’s your girlfriend,” Ellis said. “If you want to be with her long-term, she should know.”
“It has nothing to do with us. It’s just a piece of information from my past. I don’t need to know everything that’s happened in her seventeen years on the planet, do I?”
Ellis and Phoenix looked at Forrest, waiting for him to say something. Forrest only sat there with his arms crossed and a perplexed expression on his face, like he didn’t know the right thing to do either.
“I don’t need to tell her,” I said before getting up from the couch. “Everything’s good the way it is.” If I could just convince them and myself that, all my worries about my relationship with Sienna would be gone.
CHAPTER 22
Sienna
Dating Gavin/Ivan Hicks was officially the best thing that’d ever happened to me.
When we weren’t seeing each other in person, we were talking on the phone. Sometimes he visited my house—though Dad would only allow him over if I wasn’t alone—and watched movies. When he performed on Friday night, it was like he was singing to me and me only.
All my fantasies had finally come true.
