Brynn winced. “Eeew.”
“Seriously, though,” Sophie continued. “Take as long as you need to lick your wounds or whatever, just know that everyone thinks you’re better off without him.”
“Everyone?” Brynn prompted with a knowing smile.
A beat of silence. “Well, okay, just me. Mom and Dad loved James. And Gray says he’s ‘upstanding,’ although if that’s not a condemnation, then I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah, it’s really upstanding to leave your girlfriend for another woman,” Brynn grumbled.
“I am sorry about that part,” Sophie said in a softer voice. “That must have stung.”
“Yeah. But…not as much as you might think, you know? Mostly I just can’t figure out why he went for someone so completely wrong for him. This woman’s a total train wreck. I mean, he won’t even let people drink water in his car, and this woman has fruit punch in a flask.”
“Fruit punch? Who let her out of the penitentiary?”
Brynn wandered over to the window. “You know what I mean. They just don’t…match.”
“That’s the way it works sometimes, Dalton. But that doesn’t mean that you cut out your family.”
“I know,” Brynn said, her eyes inadvertently scanning the windows in Will’s house for any sign of movement. “I’m sorry. Drinks on Friday?”
“Definitely. I’ll come over there since you live in a boy-free zone.”
Not as boy-free as you might think.
For a crushing second, Brynn had the urge to tell Sophie everything. And by everything, she meant Will. About that night three years ago. About the multiple nights recently. But, most important, about the nights that weren’t about sex and that weren’t about fighting.
But there was always the risk that Soph would slip up and say something disastrous to Will th
at would give him the wrong idea and send him running. Some things were simply destined to be secrets. She and Will were one of them.
Realizing that staring at his windows wouldn’t reveal anything going on inside Will’s head, she started to turn away from the window when her eye caught on movement in his driveway. Brynn frowned at the unfamiliar vehicle. She didn’t know the first thing about cars, but this one was dark red and unremarkable. Rental-car variety.
It definitely wasn’t Will’s car and neither was it a delivery truck. Will had a visitor.
Brynn made the requisite mm-hmm noise as Sophie chirped on about some gloriously cheesy dip she would bring over on Friday, but her eyes were locked on that car.
Correction. Her eyes were locked on who was getting out of the car.
Will didn’t just have a visitor. He had a gorgeous, twentysomething, leggy, big-boobed brunette visitor.
Brynn had been in enough yoga classes to know a good female butt when she saw one, and this woman had cornered the market on tight and curvy. The slim gray pencil skirt and fuck-me heels didn’t hurt either.
The woman moved toward the trunk of the car, and Brynn shifted to the other window to get a better view, just like any stalker worth her salt would do.
Brynn’s jaw dropped.
The woman had a suitcase.
“Soph, I gotta go,” Brynn said abruptly.
“Um, okay?”
“Sorry, I’ll call you later. Actually, I probably won’t. But come over around seven on Friday.”
“But, Brynn—”
Brynn hung up, tossing the phone on her perfectly made bed before dashing to the closet. She didn’t know what the plan was, but when she did figure it out, she needed to look…well, better.