A third text comes before I can respond.
RAEGAN:Can we talk?
Fuck my life.
19
Hayes
“This is insane, Hayes.” Ryker’s eyes are wide and full of surprise as he sips his expensive as fuck bourbon. We’re in our usual booth in the bar and I just finished telling him all about how my wife is also Demi’s ex. “Did you know Raegan was bisexual?”
“No. Who gives a fuck about that. You’re missing the point.” I shoot him a terse scowl. “How in the hell did I find theonegirl to have a random one-night-stand with and she was also magically with my wife. Don’t you get it? We used each other to try to get over the same damn woman.”
“Talk about a small fucking world.”
“You’re telling me.”
“By the way, I’m still pissed at you for not telling me you got married. We’ve always told each other everything.” He sighs into his rocks glass, before taking another slow sip. “And now you’ve gone from the world’s greatest fuckboy, to being marriedandfucking your wife’s lesbian ex-girlfriend practically overnight. And here I thought mine and Bella’s love story was fucked up.”
I shoot him the least respectful side-eye I can muster. “There’s so many things wrong with what you just said. Also, I did tell you. It’s not my fault you didn’t believe me.”
“First of all. Who tells their best friend they got married over text? Second. What exactly did I say that was incorrect?”
“First off,are you ever going to let that go? Andsecond,I was never a fuckboy.” I scoff indignantly. “Who even says that anymore?”
“Not any time soon,” he admits with a cocky grin plastered on his face. “And my wife and I do… when we talk aboutyou. I dare you to prove me wrong.”
What I’d like to do is wipe that smug look off his face. “I think I liked you more when you were a grumpy, sexless asshole. And I’m not fucking anyone anymore. I only fucked Demi the one time and I haven’t since.”
Ryker turns his body to face me, crosses his arms and observes me, smirking like he knows something I don’t.
“You really haven’t fucked anyone since Axel’s wedding night?” His nose wrinkles as he fakes an exaggerated dry heave. “Jesus. That’s a weird sentence and one I never could have imagined I’d ever say.”
“If we’re excluding the other night when I fingered my demo bunny to orgasm after class, since finger fucking isn’t exactly the same, then yes.”
His eyebrows raise and his lips twist into a wry smile. “Wasn’tDemiyour demo bunny?” he asks. “And since when do you finger your demo bunnies to orgasm, anyway? I call bullshit. You want her.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying… that there’s something different about this girl. She’s got your attention and you can’t even fucking see it.”
“She’s a lesbian, Ryker,” I retort firmly.
“Yet she still wantedyouto fuck her. And thenyoufingered her to orgasm. Sounds like she enjoyed both. You’ve hadtwosexual experiences with the girl and she didn’t go running for the hills. If she’s really gay and just experimenting, then more power to her, but I don’t buy it. I think she likes you in a non-friendly sense.” He stops talking but his face tells me he’s not done.
I lean back against the soft leather of the booth as I wave an irritated hand at him. “Keep going. I know you want to.”
“And when was the last time you were with the same girl twice? And had no one in between?”
Fuck. I side eye him and squeeze the tight muscles in the back of my neck that are beginning to make my head throb. “Not since my wife.”
“I rest my case,” he says a little too smugly and confidently.
“I’m starting to regret calling you,” I grumble.
“That’s a fucking lie and you know it.”
It is a lie. Ryker has been my best friend, since… forever. We’ve been friends so long, we’re basically brothers. He knows me better than anyone and I’d be an idiot to ignore his thoughts on this fucked up situation, not matter how much it irritates me.
