Page 25 of Made Better Together

She pivots her head to face me, eyebrow raised. “Is that your way of asking why I invited you?”

Am I about to get an answer on that? “The question did cross my mind.”

She finishes her beer, and when her response comes, it’s in a low, smooth tone.

“Because one thing I’m no longer juggling is a boyfriend.”

Fuck. Okay?

“That’s…good.”

“I don’t know if it was good a month ago when Greg broke up with me, but it is right now.”

I’m quickly catching up. Also, fuck Greg. Or maybe, thank you, Greg, depending on where this conversation is going.

“And you wanted—what?”

She bites her lip. “After the Fourth last year, it took me a solid two weeks to stop thinking about you. That was quite the impression you left.”

Holy shit, really? Same, Eden, same.

“But then I got distracted by soccer and started dating Greg…then all of a sudden it’s the Fourth again, which reminded me of last year, and I’m not attached to anyone…”

“Uh-huh…” This is starting to sound like a glorified booty call.

I’m not complaining.

“Also, Bree stood over my shoulder and dictated that message I sent you, and wouldn’t leave me alone until I did.”

“Do you always do what you’re told?” I tease.

The ends of her lips turn up. “Very few people have even tried.”

“Well, you did ultimately press send.” I inch closer to her. “What do you want to happen now?”

7

EDEN

“What do you want to happen now?”

Bree had asked me a similar question the other day.

“Girl, you know the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” she’d said when I’d admitted I was eager to forget Greg.

He’d ended things in early May simply because of our crazy schedules. I was heading to California once school got out. The week I was coming back to Orlando, he was traveling to the NHL draft to support his little brother, and then spending the rest of the summer with his family in Minnesota.

So it didn’t end badly, but now that I returned to Orlando, I was ready to move on.

“I don’t know about all that.” I’m not exactly a sex-on-the-first-date type of person, let alone into one-night stands. “But it would be fun to have a distraction.”

“Who’ll be at the party that you would be into?”

“That’s the problem. No one.” The few guys who were coming from our Tolliver circle were already taken or not my type.

“Well, who else can we invite then? Maybe someone has a friend they can bring?”

“I don’t really want to be set up with a stranger.”