He had a funny expression on his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I bumped my shoulder with his. “That was really nice of you, you know. Saying something to them,” I explained just in case he didn’t know what I was referring to.
Sacha glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, getting to the door first to hold it open before waving me forward. “Let’s go before everyone else finishes paying. I don’t want to deal them right now.”
Nodding, I went into the cool night with him following behind.
We walked in silence for a little bit before he suddenly said, “They’re real assholes sometimes.”
I shrugged my shoulders so that I wouldn’t outright say,yeah they are.“Well, you’ve known them for a long time and you’re together constantly. It happens.”
He nodded, his attention on the sidewalk as we made our way toward the hotel a few blocks down. “You know from experience?”
Another flashback of the incident so many years back flashed through my brain, and I had to fight the urge to snort. “You have no idea how mad those three have made me. I can feel a headache coming on just thinking about it.”
Sacha let out a soft little snicker.
Sensing he was still frustrated, I kept going. “Once, I went five months without talking to any of them. Before that I’d never gone more than a week without seeing them since kindergarten.”
“What happened?” he asked, and why wouldn’t he? If he’d mentioned the same thing to me, I would have asked too because I’m nosey.
“Well…” Damn it, what the hell could I say? I wasn’t exactly ready then—or possibly ever—to tell him about my boobs. I’d told Brandon about my operation the night I decided that I was ready to sleep with him for the first time. The three idiots knew because we’d been friends forever. There were no secrets between us. I’d been talking about getting the surgery done for years, but they knew mainly because it was them: my twin and the two guys who were pretty much skin tags I couldn’t get rid of.
But Sacha wasn’t a lifelong friend, and we weren’t about to strip down or make him my third boyfriend, so he was only going to get a small part of the story.
“They all got pretty drunk one night a few years ago and said some really mean stuff about me behind my back to the other guys on the tour.” I blew out a breath and bit the inside of my cheek. “I didn’t take it too well.”
He visibly winced. “Is that why you stopped touring with them?” he asked, obviously remembering our conversation from a month back.
I nodded. “They really hurt my feelings.”
“And that’s why you don’t like being around your brother when he’s been drinking?”
Damn, he was perceptive. “Bingo.”
“But you forgave them.”
“Of course. Besides my friend Laila that you met, they’re my best friends. Eli’s my twin. I’m kind of obligated to forgive him for all the stupid shit he’s ever done, but I told him before coming on this tour that I wasn’t going to do it unless he promised he wouldn’t drink around me like that again. It’s fine now. They’ll always get on my nerves and drive me a little nuts. It’s normal. I’m sure you know that.”
Sacha made a little humming noise in the back of his throat. “I go months without seeing them when we’re not on tour. Mat and Isaiah are roommates. Julian lives a couple blocks away from where they do, so they see each other often. I start to miss them sometimes when it’s been a while, but after a few weeks on tour, I remember why I don’t hang out with them when we’re home.”
He shook his head with an exasperated sigh. “There’s only so much you can take, being around the same people all the time.”
Well. Okay. That hurt a little.
I nodded, lowering my gaze to the ground. “Yeah, I get it,” I replied as the burn of what he’d said sizzled along my skin. I mean, he’d asked me to sit with him on the flight to Australia, hadn’t he? And he’d invited me to the soccer game, right? It wasn’t like I’d been chasing him around. No one had ever accused me of being terribly clingy or needy before.
But still. His words stung. A lot.
“Ah shit.” He sighed. “Gaby.”
“Huh?” I crouched to fiddle with my shoelace, trying to blink the rejection coursing through me away. Really, I hadn’t been trying to be a leech.
“Hey.” His voice was soft.
“Hmm?” I untied my shoelace and retied it, oblivious to the fact he was lowering himself to ground in front of me until his knees bumped mine. I could smell the spicy, clean scent of his shampoo and body wash. Why did I do this to myself? Why couldn’t I be attracted to someone that saw me as more than a friend?
More than anything, what I wanted in that instant was to not care that he’d just said he was tired of being around the same people all the time.
