I lean back and eye him up and down. “Excuse me, what?”
Cal chuckles, obviously amused by my distress. “I was going to offer you a ride to wherever you’re going. I drove Evie’s delivery van.” He points to something out in the street, but I don’t turn my head to look.
“I don’t need a ride, Cal.” The words barely make it out because of how hard I am clenching my jaw. “It’ll be faster if I take the subway.”
“Come on.” He grabs me gently by the elbow. “Traffic is so much better since they started charging people to come into the city. And you know it’ll be a lot safer than on the subway.”
Since I can’t argue with that last part, I let him lead me to his van. It’s white and non descriptive, the kind that people get kidnapped in.
“So you’re a delivery boy now?” I half tease him.
Cal just shrugs. “The company who was supposed to do the delivery was short handed. Evie was panicking that the flowers would go bad if she waited longer, so here I am.”
“Very noble of you.”
There’s a small touch of sarcasm in there. The reality is that Cal always seemed to be really nice. I met his girlfriend only a couple of times in passing, and she gave the impression that she was everybody’s friend. A little annoying if you ask me, but I’ve always been more on the pragmatic side. I don’t trust anyone, and I like it that way.
“Where were you tonight?” Cal asks as he starts the van. Checking for cars, he pulls into the light traffic and starts driving without asking me where to go. “Hot date?”
The breath gets knocked from out of me when he says the words. For a split second, I feel guilty, and like I am cheating on his friend, which is really stupid.
“Yes.” I clear my voice a couple of times. “I was on a date.”
“Good for you,” he tells me in a cheery tone. “We were all relieved to hear you finally gave Alex the boot for good.”
“What?” I couldn’t be more shocked if I tried. They are all a tight group, so I always assumed that I’d be the villain in any story about me that went around.
“It’s true,” Cal assures me. “We never understood why you kept on going back to him knowing he’d throw you out again.”
My heart rate picks up a little, and there’s a good chance I might start hyperventilating in this damn van of his.
“Now that you don’t talk to him anymore, he walks around like a wounded bear.”
I barely make out Cal’s words through the noise in my head.
“He’s acting like you did him wrong, but we know better.”
I guess I should feel relieved knowing that others could see right through Alex’s bullshit. But talking about him now only makes me miss him more. I hate myself for that. That chapter of my life is closed for good. There is no going back.
“How do you know all this?” I try to sound nonchalant about it, but there is a little tremor to my voice.
“Kyle is our mole.” Cal snorts when he says that as he refers to Alex’s best friend in the group. “He knows more because they got into this big fight…”
“Who did?”
“Kyle and Alex,” he confirms. “They about got into a fist fight when Alex was an ass to Kyle’s girlfriend…”
My eyes about drop out of my head. “Kyle has a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, I think he wants to marry her, too.”
I shake my head in disbelief. Kyle was the biggest player of the group, always drinking and sleeping around. A very nice guy in general, but not anyone I’d have ever guessed that would ever settle down. If Cal is talking about Zara, I did meet her once or twice, and she was nice, but hard to believe Kyle would make a commitment.
“Alex was such an asshole to her. I think he was jealous,” Cal explains.
My mouth goes dry, and I think I’m about to cry. “Alex wanted to be with Kyle’s girlfriend?”
Cal busts out laughing. “Fuck no. He just thought that Zara was after Kyle’s money. In his mind, he thought he was protecting Kyle, but it backfired in a bad way…”
