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“But Easton…”

“Can be quite persuasive and stubborn?” she finishes for me.

My shoulders fall. “Unfortunately, yes. But we’re just friends—two friends helping each other out. He was having issues with his boss, so he’s getting something out of this too.”

Valerie stands up straight again, crossing her arms over her chest. “I mean, I don’t kiss my friends on the lips, but to each their own, I guess.”

I swallow roughly as I mentally chastise Easton for not telling me his mom knew the truth about us, and for kissing me in front of her.

What the hell was he thinking?

“Yeah, well…”

“All I care about is that you two stay honest with each other, Lennon.”

Honesty.

Yeah, I haven’t exactly embraced that, but I can’t speak for Easton.

I feel like he’s been honest with me far more than I have with him.

“And that my son is taking care of you like he said he would,” Valerie adds.

I huff out a laugh as my mind goes back to our conversation. “Oh, he’s definitely taking his word seriously. Although he’s given me an addiction to grilled cheese sandwiches now, so I’m not sure that’s been beneficial.”

Valerie’s grin widens. “Grilled cheese sandwiches, huh?”

“Yes. He made me one on a night when he came home and found me having just thrown up. It was his suggestion and one of the only things that sounded good to eat at the time. And even though most of the nausea has subsided, I still find myself craving them every day. It’s a problem, really.”

“Huh,” Valerie says before turning her back to me and moving over to the sink to start washing potatoes for dinner.

“Wh—why did you say it like that?”

She peers at me over her shoulder. “I used to make Easton grilled cheese sandwiches when he was a kid any time he was sick. He said they always made him feel better.” She settles back into her task, but the feeling she just stirred up within me is enough to make my heart race.

For a split second, I picture Easton as a young kid, biting into a grilled cheese sandwich with a look on his face as if that sandwich would solve all of his problems.

I wish that were the case for me as an adult now because learning that little fact about him is making this tightness in my chest grow worse—the tightness that’s been caused by a mixture of feelings I have for my best friend that I don’t know what to do with.

That’s not true. You know exactly what to do, Lennon. You’re just too afraid to act on it.

“It’s just a shame that everything changed between the two of you after prom night. Otherwise, I might hold out hope that this marriage could turn into something real.”

My gaze snaps back to her. “You know about that?”

“Lennon, I’m the one who told him to show up to your house to ask you to prom.”

My sharp inhale nearly knocks me off the stool. “Wait. He wanted to go to the prom with me?”

Her brows pinch together as she wipes her hands on a dish towel. “I thought that’s why you two stopped talking…”

I shake my head. “I didn’t know that’s why he was there.” I shift on the stool and lean over the counter. “We stopped talking because he punched my boyfriend that night and said some not-so-great things to me…”

“I knew he hit that boy, but wasn’t aware he was also an asshole to you. I raised him better than that.”

“Yeah, well? He basically told me I was stupid for going with Justin because he was saying things about me to his friends. And then I walked away from him when he insulted my ability to make any rational decisions for myself.”

Valerie leans back against the counter, crosses her arms again, and winces. “Sounds like something Easton would say, unfortunately. He has a hard time accepting other people’s decisions. Always has.”