Page 63 of Wild About You
“Surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be. He’s hardly home and even when he is, there are usually other people around. Except…”
“What?” Her grin lights up her face. “Did something happen?”
“No. Of course not. But I broke up with Chris.” I quickly add, “Tyler doesn’t know so please don’t tell Leo.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I tell him and he makes a move, I’m not sure I have enough willpower to say no.”
Scarlett gives me a wide innocent look. “Why would you want to?”
“Broke my heart. Ruined all other men for me.”
She laughs softly. “I know what that is like.”
* * *
I barely see Tyler the rest of the week. Thursday night the guys have a home game. Everly and I decide to watch it at the house instead of the arena because she has a quiz in English class she needs to study for. After we have dinner, Everly lingers in the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” I ask. It isn’t like her to hang around. She usually goes straight to her room once she’s cleared her plate and put it in the dishwasher.
“Yeah.” She cradles her phone. “I got invited to a thing tomorrow night.”
“What kind of thing?”
“My friend Grace is having a few friends over for her birthday. It’s at her house, pizza, ice cream, that sort of thing.”
“That sounds fun.”
“You think?”
“Have you ever stayed over at a friend’s house before?”
“Yeah, of course.” She bobs her head from side to side. “No, not really. Not like this. My friends and I back home would get together and get wasted or high and sometimes we’d crash, but I’ve never had normal friends before. Those girls weren’t even really my friends. I wasn’t into drugs or even alcohol, but they were the only ones that didn’t look at me like I was a weirdo for all the trouble I got into.”
“Do you want to go?”
She hops up onto the counter. “Maybe. You look like you used to get invited to stuff like this all the time. Is it any fun?”
“I’m trying not to see that as an insult,” I say with a small chuckle. “Depends on the people going. It’s either a ton of fun or really catty. Grace doesn’t strike me as catty though. She’s in my fifth hour class.”
“Nah, she’s not like that. I don’t know her friends that well though.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“She’s in stage crew.”
“Ah.” I nod. “Was she swooning over your brother’s teammates?”
“No. She came up to me the next day and told me she would have been horrified if her dad had done something like that. He was a pro baseball player, or maybe football. I don’t know.”
“I think you should go. I’ll tell you what. Take your phone with you. If it sucks, text me and I’ll come save you.”
“Thank you.” She jumps down and hugs me.
She’s halfway up the stairs before I get over my shock that she hugged me and I call out, “You’re welcome.”
19
