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He was deep in thought. “Yes, he is.”

“Will you rename him now that you’re not together?”

Silence as we pulled up to a red light. I shouldn’t have mentioned the breakup or Mia twice in two sentences.

But he didn’t seem all that bothered. “As much as I didn’t like the name when she picked it out, he suits it now. He’s so quiet and sneaky; he is a ghost.”

I nodded and felt the smile on my face before I even realised he had done it again. Softened.

Back to the boy who had looked under my bed for monsters. Given me his ice cream when a bird shat in mine. Helped me with algebra when I nearly gave up in ahuff.

“You hated the idea of a cat at first.”

“I don’t hate anything,” he said, focused on the road. “Hate is such an extreme and exhausting emotion.”

“You hate me.”

The quiet words were out before I could stop them, contemplate them, or even think them.

That was the issue being around him. So eager to please, to fill the silence, I became a different version of myself. It had been the same when we were teenagers, back when we were friends.

He laughed once, a deep noise from his throat. “Youhateme.”

I’d said it before. Damn, I said it last night to Jared.

“I hate the way you treat me,” I said slowly, knowing with each syllable what I was saying left me open like a knife wound. He was right. It was an exhausting emotion.

“And how do I treat you?” he asked, still amused, his lips twitching as he looked left and right, glancing at me as he did.

I breathed in deeply. I might as well continue with the honesty. “Either like I don’t exist or like I’m dirt on your shoe.”

“Dirt on my shoe,” he repeated, considering it. “And how would you like me to treat you?”

That was a good question. I didn’t want our friendship from back when we were teenagers. As much as I missed it, even now, ten years later. I didn’t want him to continue to ignore me, either.

“Like how I am with Is?”

“No,” I said quickly, unable to hide my disgust.

“Like how I was with you last night?” His hand gripped my thigh with the same force it had in the hallway.

I swallowed. “No. I’m no one’s rebound.”

“Could be fun, though,” he said, looking both ways at a junction.

There wasn’t a second I doubted that. It wasn’t a question.

The real question was how furious would Issy be if she ever found out?

How would I see him at every family event and ignore him like I had, knowing what it would have finally felt like for him to be between my thighs?

If I needed to get laid — which, clearly I did — I needed to find that affection with anyone else.

Even Jared.

We weren’t far from his house, going further away from town, closer to Dom’s home.

But I hadn’t told him the way.