Ashley leaned over and bumped his shoulder. “I bet Gabby loves you very much.”
He shrugged. Gabby did love him, but it made him feel guilty, thinking about how he wished she’d gotten the normal, blissful childhood he had. Somehow, a conversation on gum had gone off the rails and turned into something a lot more serious than he’d intended.
Ashley tapped the bench between them. “So, I hear you’re single now.” There was hesitant teasing in her voice. She likely thought it was a safer topic.
“Yes, I’m definitely single.”
“You two dated for quite a while.”
As much as he was tempted to lie again, he didn’t want this stupid mistake between them anymore. Lying to Flynn was no big deal, but not to Ashley, not anymore. It had been too easy to keep the lie going in the beginning. He rarely talked about his personal life anyway, so there was no need to come up with bogus details about her. He wouldn’t start now.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“I know.”
He tensed. Here came the hard part. “I made her up.”
“What?” Ashley instinctively drew back from him, and he reached out to her. “Hold on and hear me out.”
She nodded, still looking confused. “Why would you make her up?”
“Ashley, you were … fragile … after the whole thing with Reid. I wanted to seem non-threatening to you when we were walking together every night. So you didn’t worry I’d one day start acting like our friendship was something more.”
He was such a liar. He’d just traded one lie for another. But telling her the whole truth, that he’d made up a girlfriend because he was in love with her was not about to come out of his mouth. And in a way, what he’d said was true. He hadn’t wanted her to one day pull away from him when she figured out how bad he had it for her. She wouldn’t see his hopeless crush if she thought he had a girlfriend.
She bit her lip, her forehead wrinkling as she thought over what he’d said. “I guess I can understand that.” Her shoulders dropped, and she came in for a platonic hug, her hands patting him softly on the back before she quickly retreated, looking kind of sad. “Thanks for always watching out for me.”
As if on cue, her phone buzzed and she looked across to the AutoBest parking lot. “Shaun’s here. Let’s go.”
She stood and started walking back to his car without him. He easily caught up to her, but he could tell he’d upset her. And he hated that.
