Carrie reaches out to touch her arm. “I’m so sorry I barged in unannounced. If I’d known you were here and that you two were… busy…” She looks over her shoulder at me with a knowing smirk. “I would’ve waited until tonight to meet you.”
My heart trips.Shit.
“Tonight?” Lizzy shoots me a look.
“Of course! At the gala!”
Lizzy tilts her head at me. “Seems someone failed to mention that little tidbit.”
I blow out a breath, feeling as though I’ve been caught in a lie. “I didn’t know for sure if she’d be back in time,” I explain.
“Plans change!” Carrie crows brightly. “The shoot wrapped early, and I wasn’t going to miss out on the gala for anything. Everyone who’s anyone will be there.”
She turns back to Lizzy and sing-songs, “Crane’s Gallery Gala is one of the biggest events of the season.”
One of Lizzy’s eyes twitches. “Sounds fun,” she quips, adjusting her towel. “I should... go. Nice to meet you, Carrie.”
With her back straight and shoulders tense, I watch Izzy go, fighting every urge I have to run after her.
As soon as she disappears, I huff, giving my friend a dirty look. “Did you have to come on so strong?”
“What? You mean, as my normal, outgoing, friendly self?” she grins, her perfect white teeth flashing as shetosses her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Come on, Rowan. You’ve been obsessing over that girl for years. I justhadto meet her.”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Pretty sure you just freaked her out.”
“Oh,please.” Carrie waves a dismissive hand and flops onto the couch. “She seems like a tough chick. I’m sure she can handle knowing you’ve been pining after her. For as long as I’ve known you, at least.”
“I need you to take it down a few notches,” I warn, moving to sit in the chair across from her. “Our past is... complicated.”
“Oh, honey,” she says with a laugh, cocking her head. “There’s nothing complicated about the way you look at her.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I slouch against the chair and glower, which doesn’t dissuade her one bit.
“What about the photo you keep of the two of you in your wallet?” She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “How old were you then, again?”
“That’s different,” I mutter in defense, heat creeping up my neck as I mumble. “I was eleven.”
No one but Carrie knows about the photo I’ve kept in my wallet all these years. Not even Logan. I found it in a box of my things a few months after they’d been sent over to Ireland from Lakeside.
It was taken the summer before my parents died. Lizzy and I are sitting on the tire swing in my front yard, grinning at each other like idiots with ice cream dripping down our hands. My mom had taken the picture with her old-school camera, saying we looked “so stinkin’ cute.”
Not only has the picture kept a piece of Lizzy with me all this time, but a memory of my mom too.
“I’m just saying,” she continues, “you’ve been hung up on this girl forever. And now she’s here.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “So what exactly is going on between you two?”
“It’s not like that,” I protest. Lacing my hands together, I stand, gripping the back of my neck. “We’re....” I give my friend a sheepish look. “…fake dating.”
“You’re what?!” Carrie squeals, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “Why? How? When did this happen?”
Desperately wishing I’d never opened my mouth, I growl, “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” she says, crossing her impossibly long legs and settling deeper into my couch, game on for freaking story time.
“Look, I should go check on her?—”
“Nope.” She points a perfectly manicured finger at me. “You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and then run the fuck away. Spill.”
With a heavy sigh, I drop back into the chair. “Fine.” I give her the rundown of the past couple of weeks.
