“You knewtoday?” I close in on his personal bubble.
“Yes. She comes around the clinic sometimes when the crew is on duty.”
“And she what, told you she was there to sell Girl Scout cookies all the other times?”
“No. She said she had a friend on the crew.”
“Hah. A friend? And you believed her?”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“No, you’re right. Most people don’t go around lying to their first loves and cheating on them with the first thing that moves. What are you still doing with her if you know full well she’s already taken?”
“I think you of all people should know what it’s like to feel lonely,” he says to me.
I don’t have time to react to his judgment. Reed’s hands get angry for the both of us, tightening into fists at his sides as he steps in front of me. For a moment, I’m terrified he’sgoing to do something stupid and ruin his firefighting career. But then he says, “You’re lucky I love my job. Now apologize.”
Ben cowers in a sheepish slump. “I’m sorry, Hailey. I should have never said that. It’s me who’s lonely, and it shouldn’t come at the expense of anyone else.”
I should accept his apology. But I can’t do that when he’s put me in the worst position.
“You better get back to your date,” I say, and he takes that as his cue to leave.
When he spins on his heels, Reed’s hands relax.
“And I thought McCafferty was the asshole,” Reed jokes.
With my mind on Dean, I leave Reed for his truck.
We aren’t even talking, Dean and I, but he deserves to know this. What am I going to tell him?
“Wait. I’m sorry. You could have handled that situation all by yourself. I shouldn’t have stepped in. And I’m supposed to be defending Dean to you, not making stupid jokes.”
“Dean was my best friend. Did he tell you that?”
Reed and I are the farthest apart we’ve been all night, and as if he senses it too, he reaches for me. His fingers skate down my palm until they thread between my knuckles. “Implied it. I don’t know what he did to ruin that, but he regrets it.”
“I know he does. But it doesn’t change anything for me.”
Just when I thought we’d gotten all of the hidden information out in the open, Madison had to go and do this.
Reed crowds me against his truck door, shielding me from witnessing Madison and Ben stepping out onto the sidewalk.
“Dean’s going to be so upset. He’s loved her since we were fourteen,” I whisper.
She’s not looking, but Reed glares at Madison anyway. “Doesn’t anyone stay true to the person they’re with anymore?”
I don’t think he notices, but his grip tightens on my hand as he says it.
Who hurt you, Reed Morgan?I still don’t know.
I cradle his face in the palms of my hands so he doesn’t have to look their way. And even though it’s weirdly poetic, I say the first thing that comes to my heart.
“Not everyone is looking on the other side of the fence. Some people notice the beauty in their own backyard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
REED
