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He smiled as he sipped his coffee. “Do you still want to look for a place in Mexico? We’ll need to have our lawyers look into property laws and visas, that kind of shit.”
I threw my arms around him and kissed the side of his head. “I’ll go anywhere, as long as I’m with you.”
He leaned his head against my cheek. “Same.”
“Okay, you smell amazing, and I smell bad,” I said. “I need to shower. Finish the grocery list and put the order in. I thought I could try cooking a few things, if you’re game.”
He laughed and patted my arm. “I can supervise. So we don’t die.”
That was probably fair.
I showered, pulled on some clean sweatpants—mine, this time—and a long-sleeve T-shirt.
I carried the knee brace back out to the kitchen. “You’ll be pleased to know I didn’t leave my dirty clothes on the floor.”
Luke was looking at something on his laptop, which turned out to be real estate photos.
“Oh, find anything?” I asked.
He kind of shrugged. “Your phone rang,” he said, nodding to where I’d left it.
I already knew who it was going to be...
“It was Maddox.”
Yep. Guessed it.
“He’s tried calling a few times,” Luke said. “And messaging.”
“I know.”
Luke nodded slowly and he crossed his arms, which wasn’t good. “You know how you said it was actually good to see our families without any warning because then we just got it all over and done with without any time to overthink anything?”
I was pretty sure I also knew where he was going with this.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Because all the guys are coming here for lunch, Maddox and Roscoe included.” Luke’s eyes met mine, determined and serious. “And you and Maddox are gonna sit down and talk.”
NINETEEN
I didn’t wantto do this. I knew I had to, but damn. It wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t blame Luke for throwing me into the deep end. He was in the middle of it all, and I didn’t want him to feel like he had to choose. Plus, he felt guilty, and I needed to remedy that.
Things were so much easier when we were younger. We were so damn busy back then, with people managing our every minute. We didn’t have time for any differences. We didn’t even have time to think.
We all had the same goals, same lives. And we were so busy living the pop-star dream, we didn’t even realize wehadany differences.
But that was all gone now. We were all living different lives and our safety nets were gone.
The bottom line was that being a grown-up fucking sucked.
I needed to have this conversation with Maddox and let the chips fall where they may.
I didn’t want things to go from bad to worse, and the fact that I wasn’t ready to fight for our friendship made me realize I was still angry at him and that Luke was right.
We really needed to do this.
Wes, Amy, and little Benny were the first to arrive. Amy looked amazing, and Wes was carrying several bags and a tray of food, and it made me laugh.
