Phoenix leaned over my shoulder, reading the text, because we clearly had no boundaries with one another.
“I can’t believe you convinced her to come here for a few months. You are one persuasive motherfucker, Heart.”
“I’m not surprised at all. You two just have a very close—friendship.” Brody raised an eyebrow as he looked at me.
Most people didn’t understand my relationship with Gracie Reynolds.
And honestly, I didn’t give a fuck who understood it and who didn’t.
“Hey. It works for us. That’s all that matters.”
“I’ve been in serious relationships before, and I didn’t talk to my girlfriend as much as you and Gracie talk,” Brody cackled.
“Maybe that’s why they didn’t last, huh?” I smirked.
He flipped me the bird.
“I remember that first time Gracie ever got drunk with us, and I was giving her a hard time about how codependent you two saps were,” Phoenix said, trying to hide the goofy grin on his face. “And she went into this elaborate story about how you both got cell phones at the same time, as if that made it more acceptable.”
“Yep. It was the Christmas that we turned thirteen. She lived in Cottonwood Cove, and I was in Magnolia Falls. We started texting and talking every day way back then. So we know when one of us is off. She calls me out for it, and I call her out for it. And she’s been off ever since she moved to Paris.”
“You two do have that sick sense, I guess.” Phoenix took a pull from his bottle.
“It’s ‘sixth’ sense, you dipshit,” Brody bellowed out in laughter, and Phoenix gave him the finger.
I tapped a few times on the bar top as I stood. “I’m going to head home and get some work done, and then get packed up.”
“Bass and Cannon are heading over in a bit. You don’t want to stick around a little longer?” Brody asked, because all five of us usually met on Wednesdays for a beer, and we’d catch up on our week.
“I’ve got to get shit done before I leave. Tell them I’ll see them when I get back.”
“I think he’s going home to wait by the phone like a little pussy,” Phoenix said with a wicked grin on his face. “How about you bring me back a baguette. I hear they’re fabulous, and a hell of a lot better than the shit my brother has us eating here.”
“Fuck off,” Brody said. “And who asks someone to bring them back a fucking baguette from Paris? How about you bring me back a hot Frenchwoman who wants a no-strings-attached relationship and is open to having sex in the back of the bar on my breaks. Preferably multiple times a day.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, laughing.
I had other things on my mind.
Starting with bringing my best friend back home.
two
. . .
Gracie
I was a total cliché.
It was my worst nightmare.
I felt like a complete failure.
Like everything I’d been warned about had happened.
And now I had to clean up the mess I’d made.
My parents had been suspicious that something was off, but Cutler was impossible to fool.
