“Why would she be jealous when she has all of this?” her boyfriend, Rush said, gesturing to the length of his body.
Rush was our wide receiver, one of the best I’d ever seen. We’d become close friends after Wilder had gotten together with Olivia freshman year and hadn't been around as much. But then, last year, he’d had to go and hook up with Scarlet, so now I was the lone man out.
Again, not even remotely jealous. Things were exactly how I wanted them. Eternal bachelorhood was all I’d ever wanted.
“Because,” I started to answer Rush’s question, “she wants to have—”
“Stop,” Wilder interrupted me. “Nobody needs to hear what you’re about to say.”
I shut my mouth, smirking, deciding to play nice.
Of course Wilder had known what I was going to say. We were more like brothers. We’d been best friends since kindergarten, and we knew each other better than we knew ourselves. There were times when it came in handy and other times when it annoyed us, but I didn’t know where I would be without him.
“So, Slate,” Olivia jumped in, pushing her long dark hair over her shoulder. “Are you going to sing?”
Olivia and I had become good friends when she and Wilder had become a couple. She was fun and smart, and the only time we didn’t get along was when we fought over Wilder, but it was all in good fun, and I mostly just liked getting her feisty side to come out.
“I wasn’t planning on singing tonight,” I told her, even though I knew she wasn’t going to like that answer.
Olivia was an incredible singer. She put everyone to shame when she took the stage. She looked and sounded like a true pop star when she was singing.
“What? You have to sing something,” she insisted. “You didn’t sing last time and I let you off the hook, but not tonight.”
I raised one brow at her. “You call hounding me all night letting me off the hook?”
She gave me a sheepish grin. “I just want you to have fun.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. I always have fun.”
Olivia and Scarlet looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Neither of them approved of the way I lived my life, going from girl to girl.
Why was it when people got into relationships, they felt the need to constantly help other people get into relationships too?
Probably because misery loves company, and I was no fool. Yes, Wilder and Rush had found amazing women, but that was rare. And who was to say their relationships wouldn’t eventually end one day? Love wasn’t guaranteed. I’d learned that firsthand. No matter how much you loved someone, they could still leave, even if they didn’t want to.
A pang of hurt went through my chest at the thought of my mom. She hadn’t wanted to leave my dad, but in the end it hadn’t mattered. She was gone.
I grabbed my drink and took a long swig, hoping to hide any emotion my face might be showing. I worked hard to not think about her, but the thoughts always crept in. It helped to keep myself busy and surrounded by people, but sometimes even that didn’t help.
Some girl was up on stage singing a song about how she could buy her own flowers, and it caught my attention. She sang with so much conviction that one of two things must be true. One, she was an independent woman who didn’t need a guy or a relationship, or two, she had recently gone through a breakup and didn’t need a guy or a relationship. Either way, she was exactly the type of girl who might be interested in what I could offer her. A no strings attached kind of thing.
I continued to watch her sing, her long blonde hair swaying as she danced, her petite body moving to the music. She was pretty, but not as beautiful as Isla.
Whoa.
Where had that thought come from? It must have been that they had similar body types and hair color. That had to be it.
“Hey guys,” a voice interrupted my thoughts. “You okay if we join you?”
I looked up and saw a friend of ours, Maverick, grabbing two chairs to add to our table. He and his girlfriend, Ellie, were both from the same small town, Lakeshore, that Wilder and I were from, but a year younger than us.
“You know you guys are always welcome,” Wilder said, slapping Maverick on the back. “How’s soccer going?”
That’s right, Maverick was on the soccer team, so he must know Isla’s boyfriend. I wasn’t particularly close to Maverick. We talked every once in a while, but Wilder had a closer connection to him since his little sister Savannah was best friends with Ellie.
I hadn’t been listening to what they were saying, but thinking about Isla had given me a reason to talk to Maverick, so I jumped into their conversation.
“So, Maverick,” I interrupted. “How are you liking the guys on your team?”
