I nodded, though I wouldn’t know what it was like to drink de-caff… or be pregnant. I loved my best friend like a sister, but I couldn’t deny the little pangs of jealousy that snuck up on me every time I thought of her being married to her soul mate and expanding their family. No one deserved to be happy more, but I’d have traded a limb for a sliver of the happiness they’d found.
I stuffed my face with the chocolate chunk muffin that would have had too many empty calories any other day. “Nothing’s wrong.”
With a raised eyebrow, Briar shook her head. “Try again.”
“I just got into it with Joel last night. We said some ugly things.” I winced when I added, “I told him I never wanted to see his face again.”
Briar’s jaw dropped. “What the hell did he do to make you go off on him like that?”
I wasn’t known for having a fiery temper, but sometimes I let the pressure build until I had to let loose. Last night was one of those nights.
I sighed heavily, slumping my shoulders. “I may have implied he was immature, and only good for sex.” I covered my face with my hands as the memories of that ugly exchange came flooding back. “Then he said I was using him to save my career… and scratch an itch because I couldn’t get it anywhere else, so I was willing tosettlefor him.” I was paraphrasing, but Briar got the gist of it.
“Are you serious?” Briar whispered, looking gob-smacked. “That doesn’t sound like Joel… or you. What the hell set you two off?”
“Sexual frustration?”
We shared a smile, but I wasn’t kidding. I think I’d been wound so tight because Joel stirred something up in me that had been dormant for a long time. I’d been ready to move in, spend the night with him, anything he asked. Except he didn’t ask. And when I suggested it I felt he’d shot me down. It was humiliating and rage-inducing. I hated him for making me want him. I knew it was stupid, but there it was, the crux of my outrage.
“I know you haven’t been, uh, seeing anyone, but what about Joel? He doesn’t seem like a guy who’d go without female company too long.”
I frowned at my best friend, wondering if he’d placed any drunken midnight calls last night. I had no doubt he had half a dozen girls in his contacts who would have been more than happy to keep him company after I stormed out. The bastard.
“I don’t ask about his sex life,” I snapped.
“Relax,” Briar said, throwing her hand up. “You don’t have to chew my head off. I just—”
“I’m sorry, Bri. You know I love you. I’m still wound up over what happened last night. Especially since things had been so great between us yesterday.”
“Did you talk to him about your proposal?”
I closed my eyes before sinking back in the hard plastic chair. “Yeah, and he was so great about it. He even bought me a huge diamond, so we could sell it, if you can believe that.”
Briar’s jaw dropped. “Shut. Up! Are you serious?” She glanced at my left hand. “Where is it?”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously I gave it back to him when we got into it. I told him it was a bad idea and he should just forget the whole thing. And that was before things got really ugly.”
“Oh, hon.” She reached for my hand. “Couples fight—”
“We’re not arealcouple. We’re friends.” Even though that argument last night felt a hell of a lot more like a break-up than any fight I’d ever had with a friend.
“Friends,” Briar echoed, looking amused. “Friends don’t buy each other engagement rings, Gia.”
“I told you why he did that. It was just so we could post pics to social media—”
“Are you listening to yourself right now? A guy doesn’t go out and drop thousands of dollars on a ring so he can post pics to social media.”
A lot of influencers did stuff like that. I called it small-penis-syndrome. But Joel definitely didn’t suffer from that. He didn’t care about impressing people, especially strangers online. Which meant he’d bought the ring for me, or at least to help me save my career.
“It was all part of the plan,” I said, still trying to sell it to Briar. It made perfect sense when Joel and I were working out the details yesterday, but now that I was trying to pitch it to my friend, it did seem a little preposterous that Joel would have agreed to it. “We were going to get a dog, do a small home reno for the sake of filming, prep the barn for our wedding—”
“Are you listening to yourself right now? No man is going to uproot his whole life to save afriend’scareer, Gia.”
“Maybe no other man would have, but Joel was willing.”
Briar’s eyes softened as they met mine. “Because he’s in love with you, hon.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re crazy. We’ve known each other forever and last night was the first time he kissed me.”
