“Nah man. I’m fucking with you.” He laughed.
“So how does this work exactly? What are you doing?”
Ari told me a little bit about his mission and how he works, including how he finds places to visit where he can do the most good. He quickly had to excuse himself to start seeing patients, so Warren and I exited the van and walked back to my car.
“Dr. Ari!” I said. “Is he a good friend?”
Warren rolled his eyes.
“Fuck off Dare. I told you, I’m straight.”
“Mmmhmm,” was all I said.
“Oh shut up. What about you? Anyone in your life? Or are you still moping?”
I jabbed him in the ribs for that, and he groaned dramatically but he didn’t stop poking.
“You’re not answering my question.”
“There’s nothing to answer.”
Warren stepped in front of me and smirked.
“You’ve got someone, don’t you?”
“You’re talking out of your ass,” I said.
“Who is it? Tell me. Come on. I thought we had no secrets. Aren’t we best buds?”
I shook my head and sighed.
“There’s no one, Warren. I told you. Now I need to go. Catch up soon?”
Warren looked at me through narrowed eyes and pushed his lips to one side.
“Why? So you can evade my questions again?”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “Be like that.”
I moved to open the trunk so I could finish my delivery when Warren spoke again.
“No. It’s fine. Yeah. We should catch up. I’ll message you later.”
I nodded and we went our separate ways.
I hated lying to my friend, and Warren was the closest thing I had to one. He’d been the only one I was able to confide inand that was because he was far too smart for his own good. Especially considering he’d been able to tell about Wyatt and me from just looking at us.
So of course I hated lying to him. Though, was it lying if there wasn’t anything going on between Zach and me?
Because there wasn’t, right?
That greaseproof paper with the muffin stared back at me when I got back in the car and it didn’t stop pestering me until I wolfed down the damn thing.
Not that it helped.
Zach was perfectly ingrained in my head, no matter what I did. And to make matters worse he was in my house, cuddling my dog, sleeping in my bed—without me in it, but still.
I knew it was the right thing to do. To help him out. To give him shelter. But I couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for letting him get so close. I didn’t need temptation under my roof. Because temptation led to weakness, and weakness led to horrible, terrible things like falling in love, and dreaming of a happily-ever-after and I couldn’t have that.
