“Sure,” Seth said. “You just slipped and fell against his mouth. Happens to everyone.”
“You’re being sarcastic.”
“When am I ever sarcastic?” Seth asked, sipping his black, sugar-free coffee as though that wasn’t a sign of the deep-rooted depravity of someone who was sarcastic all the time.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter about the why. You did it, someone clearly recognized you and took a picture, and then when you found out about it, you just… ran away?”
A moment of silence passed. I wet my lips and didn’t quite meet Seth’s eyes. The chair creaked under me as I shifted my weight.
“I didn’t actually break into a run.”
That was a weak defense, but it was true. I’d made a hasty excuse about remembering I had to go see Seth about something and gotten out of there as fast as I could.
No actual running, for whatever that was worth.
“I feel like that’s not the point,” Seth said. “You don’t think Ward deserves better?”
“Of course I think Ward deserves better!” I said, louder than I meant to. “He’s always deserved better.”
“We’re gonna come back to your self-worth issues later, but right now you need to tell Ward what’s going on so that he’s not blindsided by it when someone else tells him.”
Of course. Of course I did. I knew that. I just hated that Ward was going to know I’d screwed up again, that I was the same old Ryder, always in trouble, always making mistakes and having to beg forgiveness. Why couldn’t I juststop?
I took my phone out of my pocket just as a call came through, answering it without a second thought.
“Okay, I have a way to fix this,” Astrid said on the other end of the line. “Please tell me Mr. Tall, Dark, and Lumberjack is your boyfriend.”
My stomach clenched.
“He’s not,” I said.
Astrid sighed, and I could picture her pinching the bridge of her nose above her tiny little rectangular glasses without having to see it. I’d made her do that enough.
“Do you at least know who the other guy in the photo is?”
“What? Of course I do, what do you take me for?”
“For a client who isn’t worth the trouble he is right now but might be one day,” she said. “Do you have a name? A phone number, maybe?”
“Yes, but—”
“Perfect, good, give them to me and I’ll make him a deal. All he has to do is appear with you in public a few more times and boom, you’ve got a cute little romance in real life to sell everyone.”
“But—”
“Butwhat, Ryder?”
“He’s my best friend.”
I wasn’t sure I still had the right to call Ward my friend, let alone my best friend, but he always had been. Even if we’d been out of touch. Even after all these years. Seeing him again had felt like picking up where we left off, as though ten years hadn’t passed in the meantime.
That was why I’d kissed him.
Because when I saw him again, I felt like a teenager with a hopeless little gay crush on his best friend. Like no time had passed at all.
“Even better!” Astrid said. “He’ll do it for free. It’s the perfect story. You ran back to your hometown—you’re in your hometown, right? Doesn’t matter. You ran back home and straight into the arms of the cute boy next door. He’s humble and quiet and you’re the luckiest man in the world because he sees you for who you really are. You’re planning to adopt six kids from six different continents.”
“Six?”
