“So.” He sets down the fork carefully. “Is it gonna piss you off if I bring up the bachelor party?”
“Ha. Only if you tell me Lissa says you can’t have one. Because as best man, I’m going to plan you an epic, blockbuster bash…” I take pity on him and add, “…by which I mean a quiet gathering of no more than five people.”
He beams. “You get me. I was thinking maybe a fishing trip? You, me… Hugh and James from the crew…?”
“Sure.” I taste the mushrooms myself and lick my lips. “More rosemary, I think.”
“Anyone else?” Robbie presses.
“Hmm? I dunno, man. Like who?”
“Like Erick?”
I sprinkle more herbs on the mushrooms and taste again. “Your second cousin?”
“Ames, I meantyourErick. Your… boyfriend?” A crease appears between his eyebrows like he’s worried about my mental acuity.
As well he should be.
Fuck.
“Oh!ThatErick! My Erick.” My chest constricts—which is a natural consequence of me spending the last month lying to the most important person in my world. “Yeah, nah. I don’t think that’s Erick’s thing.”
Robbie’s frown deepens. “Why do you get that face every time we talk about him, Ames? You’ve been acting strange for weeks, you’ve barely let me hang out with the guy… What aren’t you telling me?”
“What? I tell you everything,” I say, but the lie tastes like ash in my mouth, and I rephrase. “Everythingimportant.”
After all, importance is a relative thing, right?
And how important is itreallythat when Robbie and Lissa announced their engagement on Valentine’s Day, I panic-flailed and press-ganged an acquaintance into pretending he was my secret boyfriend—surprise!—just so Robbie wouldn’t notice my heartbreak?
How important is it that, a month later, all of Winsome still thinks we’re happily coupled up, thanks to our occasional public appearances at town events and the fact that Erick and I have been hanging out enough to become good friends?
To Erick, I admit, it’s pretty damn important, though the man went along with it because he’s a great sport.
To Erick’s actual boyfriend, Carlos—the guy Erick moved to Winsome for—who’s spent the past month sneaking into Erick’s window to hide from the town gossip squad, it’s very fucking important.
To my family—my three older brothers, my older sister, and my parents—who are being hands-off for the first time in my life and haven’t confronted me about the relationship they’ve probably guessed is fakeorthe hopeless crush on Robbie that prompted it, it’s somewhat important.
To Robbie, who thinks I omitted a whole-ass relationship from our communication when we usually text about what we ate for breakfast, it would be fucking important indeed.
But I keep telling myself it’s merely the cost of doing business, when that business is protecting your best friendship from your tragic, chronic love.
“Ames.” Robbie steps closer, all heat and golden skin. His brown hair’s fallen across his forehead, and he’s so close I can smell the clean-laundry-and-musk scent of the Abercrombie cologne I first gave him in high school.
I think, inanely, that he must be on his fifth bottle now. He liked it because I gave it to him, and he just keeps buying it.
“Remember you’re not the only protective guy in this friendship,” he says in a soft growl. He sets his hands on my shoulders and shakes lightly, like he’s trying tomakeme hear him. His thumbs brush my collarbone through the thick cotton of my shirt, and that simple nothing of a touch rockets through my nerves and fries my synapses.
“How many times have I told you that the man who ends up with Ames Axford will be the luckiest man alive? You deserve to be loved by someone who’s all in. Someonewho loves every single thing about you. Someone who knows beyond a doubt that you’re the most precious human on Earth. If a guy’s not giving you that, don’t waste your time.”
“Rob.” I shake my head helplessly.
“I mean it. I know you’ve never had a real relationship before, so I’m here to tell you, if you’re really into someone, you should want to shout it from the rooftops. Is this thing with Erick the kind of relationship you want?”
I have to bite my lip to hold in a moan.
What I really want, have wanted since we were teenagers, isthis.
