“Maybe she’ll do me,” I joked.
He wandered closer, not laughing. “If that’s what you want, you should invite her back to your place. It’s been long enough, Easy Lover.”
“Don’t call me that.” I hated when he chided me for being fickle. The trouble was I had a bad habit of confusing infatuation with love. Call it a genetic predisposition; passion was my birthright.
“Speaking of… Would it be weird to run into someone after ten years, bang her, then leave town?”
“Asking for a friend?”
This was a touchy subject. He’d renounced meaningless hookups with total strangers that left him emotionally bankrupt. But Lizzy wasn’t a total stranger.
He winced. “My therapist would dissect that for months.”
“But do you want to?”
“I want to see what she wants. Can you get a ride with Chelsea?”
“Sure.” Or I could walk home if she kicked me to the curb. It was only a mile.
At last, the two girls burst through the door, laughing.
“My performance has come to an end,” Lizzy called, as though she were addressing an entire crowd and not an empty pedestrian mall. Streetlights pooled on the bricks, creating the illusion of a spotlit stage.
Evan’s flirty grin contorted into a confused grimace. “I’m sorry, what?”
His question echoed like a shot through the eerie silence of the night.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said, more seriously.
Evan rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Why are you sorry?”
She frowned. “Well, for lying to you.”
“About?”
“About being friends in high school.” She flapped her hands like she was conjuring the past. “And basically everything. I didn’t mean any harm by it.”
My jaw dropped, but Evan took the bombshell in stride. Maybe I’d been the only one taken in by whatever game these girls had been playing.
“You have nothing to apologize for, Lizzy.”
She winced and added, “And I actually go by Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth?” Evan repeated, trying it out.
“Elizabeth Wright.” She made a little bow with her head, like she was introducing herself to royalty.
Evan chuckled. “Got it.”
“I hope you aren’t mad.”
“No. I mean, of course not.” He closed the gap and rubbed her forearm. “I wish we had been friends, though.”
Elizabeth took his hand. “We could be now.”
He stared down into her eyes, and she tilted her head, inviting a kiss, a picture-perfect ending to a romance movie. “Can I walk you home so we can talk more?”
Elizabeth sighed dreamily. “I’d like that.”
