“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t take anything I say as a compliment, Sebastian. Not yet, at least.”
Ouch. “Fair enough.”
Lily considered me. “So, you hid your identity to protect your family?”
“My immediate family couldn’t give a rat’s arse. The institution, however, might not have taken too kindly to me publicly giving dating advice and encouraging blokes to let their ladies massage their prostate. Maybe in private but not on a national level.”
Lily snort-laughed and then clamped a hand over her mouth as if to take it back. Goodness, she was cute.
Trying to stifle my smile, I continued, “Anyway, that was the reason for that. Then as I got pulled into the show, I realized it was some kind of vendetta for Olly, which I thought was bollocks, but it wasn’t until I started listening to your podcast that I attempted to talk him into giving up the revenge.”
At her encouraging silence, I went on. “I could hear how much the show meant to you. How much real effort you put into helping people. It wasn’t merely a comedy dating show. You did your research, you showed kindness and compassion, and I could hear you making a difference.” I scrubbed a hand over my neck, not quite sure how to articulate my desire to know her. “You might not believe it, but I really wanted to meet you. To know if you were really who you made yourself out to be. It didn’t seem like such a bad thing signing up for the fake session until I met you. And I liked you.”
Her expression was, for once, annoyingly unreadable.
Sighing, I continued. “I-I’ve … my friends … let’s say we hang out, we have a laugh … but it feels like it never goes much deeper than that. It sounds cheesy, but … I wanted to be your friend. Like a … real one.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LILY
Sebastian Thorne had just friend-zoned me.
That shouldn’t have been my first (crushing) thought. My mind should be processing his explanation and whether I could trust him enough to forgive him.
But my brain stuck onfriend-zoned. And then proceeded to tabulate all the reasons why.
Ugh, I hated that my first reason was superficial.
I wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough.
He was a golden god who could date the most beautiful humans on the planet.
Then the “Maybe I’m not posh enough” filtered in almost immediately. Sebastian was a member of the royal family. He probably couldn’t date a commoner like me.
I wrinkled my nose.
I wasnotcommon.
My parents raised January and I to believe in our importance to them and to the world, if we did our part to make a difference in it. My podcast might seem silly to some, but I felt like it was making a small impact. Moreover, I intended to become a psychotherapist. To help people identify problems with theirmental and emotional well-being so we could put in place processes to help relieve those problems, i.e., improve people’s lives.
Perhaps it was the commoner thing though, after all. The friend-zoning. Because … there had been moments when Sebastian definitely seemed attracted to me. The almost-kiss in the library in front of my mum, for a start.
“Where did you go?” Sebastian asked, bringing me out of my tangent. “I quite literally saw you disappear somewhere inside your mind.”
“Literally?” I teased.
He grimaced, eyes bright with amusement. “Forgive me for my imprecise use of the word. You know what I mean. Where did you go?”
Goodness, I did not want Sebastian to know that my first takeaway from his confession was that I was somehow not good enough to be girlfriend material, but I definitely made the cut as a friend. “Just … processing. Your explanation is reasonable. That doesn’t mean I can magically have a reasonable response to it. Emotions sometimes don’t follow a logical process, as much as we’d like them to. I can’t switch on the trust button. It would have to be earned again.” I winced almost apologetically before I continued. “And I don’t know if I want to give us the space to explore a friendship to build trust.”
He blew out air between his lips and sank back against the wall. “Spoken like a psychology student.”
Now I winced for a different reason.
Sebastian saw. “I meant that as a compliment, believe it or not.”
