He shrugged. It was all masculine energy and too much testosterone. He really was right. Nothing about Jonah Mason was adorable. Adorable should be saved for babies and kittens. Virile was a much better word. Aggressively sexy—another accurate phrase that could be used.
“I’m coming to terms with her being the one,” he said carefully, slowly. It wasn’t as though he didn’t think I could understand him. It was more like... he was testing the words out for himself to see if these were the ones he really felt. I knew Jonah well enough to know he was a man true to his word—almost to a fault. There was no wiggle room with him. He said what he believed and believed what he said. And God save you if you tried to argue with him. “I knew it would happen at some point. He’s been trying to force girls into being ‘the one’ since high school. But at least this one seems to measure up to what he deserves.”
“Please stop talking about Lola like she’s a bottle of whiskey he’s been hunting for. She’s my friend.”
He rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s your friend, Liza.” I gave him a look. What was that supposed to mean? He sighed. “Fine, he got lucky. Really lucky. He could have ended up with the—” He didn’t finish his thought. We both knew he meant the one who slept with Charlie. “I just don’t know why he has to flaunt it. Like, we get it, dude, you’re happy. No need to rub it in the rest of our faces.”
Ah.
There it was.
Jonahwasjealous, but not because Lola had unseated him from the person Will loved most in this world. It was because Will had found someone. Foundthesomeone. And was genuinely happy and in love.
Jonah didn’t only feel left behind. He felt left out.
The realization that Jonah wanted what Will had hit me like an actual punch in the gut. I lost my breath again. It expressed out of me in a push of air and common sense. Did I have asthma? What was wrong with me?
In my defense, I had somehow never imagined this moment. I’d never pictured Will settled down. Or Jonah. Or Charlie. For as long as I could remember, it had been the four of us. We did everything together. We lived life together. And drank together. And ran a business together.
It was supposed to be us forever. The end.
But that wasn’t reality. These men of mine would eventually settle down.Shouldwant to settle down. Of course they would.
Of course Jonah would.
Of course he would find someone and fall in love with them and move in together and start a family and...
I felt faint. The color drained from my face and pooled somewhere around the vicinity of my toes, making them hot and twitchy... and why were my toes even hot? That was a weird reaction...
But the worst part of all of this was not that Jonah, Will, and Charlie would find someone. It was that I wasn’t so sure I would.
The pangs of loneliness from earlier intensified until they seemed to cut whole gashes straight through my gut.
I was alone.
I might always be alone.
And the people I was counting on to be alone with me were suddenly not such a sure deal.
“Are you okay?” Jonah asked from the other side of the desk.
A ringing sounded in my ears, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis right in front of my eyes.
“It’s weird,” I managed weakly, trying to cover my existential crisis by agreeing with him. “I mean, mostly, it’s fine. I’m happy Will is happy too. And Lola is way out of his league, so he would be absolutely moronic not to marry her. But... yeah, I never thought this day would come.” My practiced sarcasm helped me shake off the fear of being a lonely old spinster for the rest of my life, and I was able to smile and hold Jonah’s gaze when I said, “Our little Will is all grown up.”
Jonah crossed his arms sullenly. “I don’t like it, Eliza. It’s the end of an era.”
His depressed tone and pouty scowl were more entertaining than any show I was currently watching. I leaned forward and held his gaze. “You still have me, Mason. I don’t know what there is to complain about.”
He stared back. His gray-blue eyes twinkled, and he worked hard to suppress a smile threatening to poke out at the corners. “Well, I guess that’s something.”
I winked at him. “More than something. You only lost Will, and he’s second place at best.” Lifting one hand, I tossed my long, dark hair over my shoulder and said, “Everybody knows I’m the real English prize.”
“That’s true,” he said, finally giving in to a rumbly laugh. “Everybody knows that.”
I smiled wider, happy he didn’t shoot down my obvious jokes. “Thank you.”
“So do I get to take the number one English to lunch today?” He shrugged casually. “Street tacos and liquor lists?”
