“Shh!” I cast a glance over my shoulder to make sure Ethan’s bedroom door is still closed. “I don’t need the whole house hearing you.”
After I came upstairs, I tried to distract myself by reading the copy ofWar and Peaceon Ethan’s bedside table, but it’s hard to concentrate on Tolstoy when your ex-boyfriend is having it out with your current boyfriend—who also happens to be his dad.
I read ten pages before realising I’d taken zero of it in, then tossed the book on the bed and started pacing. When my anxiety started kicking in, I tried to ground myself with some yoga, but that didn’t work either. Eventually, despite it only being five-thirty in the morning in the UK, I phoned Willow.
Thankfully, Luca’s at an away game, so I was able to confide in her about everything that has been happening with Ethan and Dylan.
“Sorry,” she squeaks, “but I’m sure I just heard you say you’ve been sleeping with Coach Rourke, as in Dylan’s dad, as in aprofessorat Beckford U.”
“You heard correctly,” I say with a sheepish grin.
“What the heck! How did this happen?”
“So, it turns out Ethan was Watch Me Watch You.”
“Ethan?” She fans her face with her hand. “Oh my gosh, Leni, this is way too much to take in this early in the morning.”
“Says the girl who moved to the other side of the world with her stepbrother,” I tease.
A blush spreads over her cheeks. “Right, sorry. But he’s Dylan’s dad. Does he know what happened to you back in high school?”
Swallowing, I nod. “He knows.”
Willow leans back against her pillows, the soft morning light filtering into her bedroom as I fill her in on everything that’s happened since she left Beckford. She listens without interrupting, her face full of sympathy when I recount what it was like confronting Dylan after what he did to me.
“That sounds like a lot,” she says gently after I finish. “But I’m really proud of you for being honest and telling him how you feel.”
“It was really nerve-wracking,” I confess. “Especially with his mother hovering there. I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“Well, you have slept with her son and her ex-husband,” Willow says, amusement coating her tone.
I groan. “Too soon.”
“Sorry.” She rolls over in her bed, taking the phone with her. “So, what now?”
“I guess I’ll have to see what happened with Dylan after they leave.”
“But you really like him?”
A smile tugs on my lips, and I nod. “I really,reallylike him.”
She grins. “I can’t believe you’re dating a professor.”
“I can’t believe you’re dating your stepbrother,” I shoot back, poking my tongue out at her. “How’s all that going, anyway?”
Willow’s face lights up, and it fills me with so much warmth. She tells me all about their life in the little village of Hurworth-on-Tees and how hard Luca’s been working. I love seeing her so happy. She deserves it, and I’m slowly starting to believe I do, too.
“I miss you,” I say with a sigh.
“Me too. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch since we left. It’s been crazy getting set up in our new place, finding our way around, and trying to get all my final assessments in.”
“That’s okay. I’ve been pretty busy with school myself.”
My best friend laughs. “And sneaking around with your sexy professor. I can’t believe you had sex in his office. That’s so hot.”
A throat clearing behind me makes me startle, and I fall off the bed, crashing to the carpeted floor with a loud thud and a muffled curse.
“Leni?” I hear Willow call out from where I dropped my phone. “What the hell happ—Oh shit. Hi, Coach Rourke.”
