He glances at me, his smile both sexy and endearing. It’s not hard to see why everyone loves him. Not with a smile like that. Not with a heart like that. But it’s not his grin that makes my insides feel like molten lava. It’s thewayhe’s looking at me.
“What?” I ask, pulling open the lid of the pizza. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just miss this, is all,” he says, leaning forward to grab a slice. The motion makes his dirty blond hair rustle just the slightest.
My chest warms. “Yeah, me too.”
Emilio Estevez’s voice echoes in the room, but it’s white noise. I offer him a genuine smile of my own, and then he speaks.
“Why did we have to grow up?” he asks, letting out a sigh.
I want to tell him that things don’t have to change just because we grew up, that’s just what hechoseto do. But I don’t want to make my best friend feel bad for his life choices. They’re his and he can do what he wants. It just sucks that they don’t really include me. But I’ll be here in any way he’ll have me, because I can’t imagine living a life without him.
Chapter Nine
Austen
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cam says as he runs his hands over his face.
“I thought you’d be excited. You said you always wanted to go to Vegas,” I say.
He reaches for his coffee, his jaw tense.
“Yeah, withyou,maybe.Not you and the whole fucking football team.”
Okay, that hurts. It’s not my fault my fiancée picked seven of her closest friends to be in the wedding. If it were up to me, we’d have a smaller, more intimate wedding rather than the fifty-thousand-dollar extravaganza my parents and future in-laws have been planning since the moment we told them the news.
But everyone knows weddings aren’t about the groom in any capacity. It’s the bride’s day and no one else's.
I get the bachelor party. Savannah, her girls, and our parents get everything else.
“Come on, Cam, it’ll be fun. I promise…”
Cameron shakes his head, twisting his lips, and I can see the conflict in his eyes.
I know what the real problem is—why he doesn’t want to come.
“I’ve got it all covered; you won’t have to worry about a thing. Just show up and be there, and have fucking fun.” I reach across the wall, the space between us, leaning forward to do my best puppy dog eye impression, but it backfires.
He turns to flash me an angry glare, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, is that all you think it takes, Austen? You know I’m not like those guys. You can’t buy my company.”
My eyebrows furrow. “I’m not trying to. I just—”
I’ve told him damn near a hundred times, I don’t care about the money. I never have and never will.
I’ve spent countless vacations in St. Maartens and Hawaii, Italy, you name it.
But I’ve never had as much fun anywhere, as I’ve had just being here. Home.
With Cam.
My parents would never dream of letting him come with us, but that didn’t stop me from asking year after year.
And honestly, I’d thought at least being in college together, maybe we’d get to take some kind of trip together. But then plans changed, Savannah and I got engaged, and the wedding planning started, and then…
“I can’t spend my bachelor party weekend without my best man.” Cam sighs. “Do it for me, come on. One last hurrah before I become old and lame.”
