“You asked him to hang out before the three of us got together?”
“Shh!” I said, not wanting Kathryn to overhear this.
“Oh, stop, I made sure she was at the bar when I asked.”
“How did you know?”
Elizabeth got a guilty smile on her face.
“There’s only three of us there and not a lot of traffic,” she said. “It’s easy to overhear conversations.”
Fuck.
“I don’t know that anything will happen, Elizabeth, nor am I even sure that I—”
“Stop it with the false modesty, girl,” she said. “At least this time, you picked the right one.”
What does that mean?
“What does that mean?” Kathryn said as she came back, placing the margarita in front of me.
So much for keeping it from Kathryn.
“We’re talking about Tara’s latest crush.”
“Who?” Kathryn said, leaning forward on the table. When Kathryn asked questions, she never, ever let up. I’d learned long ago to give up trying to get her to give up on a pursuit; I had known her to ask a question on Sunday and follow-up on Saturday, even when the question was of minuscule importance.
“Brock Noelle,” I said with a sigh.
“Oh, the hot blond surfer guy with the arm tattoos?”
I guess it’s not as much of a secret as I’d like it to be.
“He’s cute and nice. Be careful, though.”
“I mean, duh,” I said. “He’s Steele’s best friend. I don’t want to sound mean, but how Steele feels doesn’t matter—”
“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Kathryn said.
Wait, what do you mean?
“He’s got some shit from his past. I know a girl he used to date. It… well, they’re broken up now for a reason.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I said.
As much as I loved Kathryn, she had one annoying feature.
“You’ll find out eventually. I’ll tell you in a month if you don’t.”
For as much as she would claw at you for answers until you cracked, she would turtle up, barely poking her head out to give a shred of gossip, and then disappearing and not saying anything more. She knew how to get people interested in her, not just in the seductive sense but in a curiosity sense. But as a friend, it bugged me.
“C’mon, Kathryn, I’d like to know if the guy I’m interested in did something to his ex I need to be worried about.”
“Oh, no, no, he’s not going to rape you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I wasn’t, but thanks for clarifying.
“It has something more to do with what he didn’t do.”
