Fuck.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Hayden.”
“I owe you honesty. You’re my best friend, Lucia.”
“Same,” she said, but I knew she felt more. The tears glistening in her eyes gave her away.
“I feel like all I do is apologize to you, but I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You can’t help how you feel or, rather, how you don’t. No more than I can help how I do.”
“Yeah, he kinda blew me away.”
“Scott says he’s sexy as fuck and nearly as big a brute as you are.”
“You’ll get to meet him.”
“He’s going with you?”
“Yeah. I guess I should’ve asked if you and everyone else were okay with him joining us…”
“No, you shouldn’t’ve. No one else asks permission to bring a date.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s a date…”
“Well, I can’t speak for him, but looking at you and how you’ve lit up every time that fucking phone’s buzzed in your pocket this week, I’d say it’s definitely a date to you.”
I nodded. Declan and I were so wrong for each other on so many fucking levels. We were so damn much alike, but he drew me in like a moth to a flame last weekend, and I couldn’t break free of the light and warmth I found in him.
“It is. He was supposed to be a hookup. That was it. We were going to fuck each other’s brains out and say our goodbyes…”
“And did you?”
“Do you honestly want to know?”
“Don’t hold back on me now. I ain’t getting any currently, so let me live vicariously.”
“Yeah. We did. We fucked each other stupid, and then he stayed the night. I made him breakfast the next morning, and again, I thought that would be the last I saw of him.”
I still couldn’t believe he gave me his number, and Ireallycouldn’t believe I texted him.
“But…”
A deep inhale expanded my chest, and I held it until I couldn’t anymore. “But he gave me his number.”
“And you texted him.”
“Before he even got to the taxi in front of the apartment.”
Saucers, that’s the only way to describe how big and round her eyes grew. “Wow. You do have a thing for him.”
“Yeah. But it won’t last. It’ll be fun for a while until he realizes what a bossy fucker I am.”
“Ahem! Some of us like being bossed around once in a while.”
“Yeah, he and I have similar interests, and by similar, I mean the exact fucking same.”
