TRIA
Frustrated, and admittedly a little pissed, I wait on Brin Waters—one of my only friends—to show up for lunch. I met her a few months ago, and I swear she was just what I needed.
She walks in, her eyes scanning the room for me. Her dress is much too big for her small body. Her hair is pinned neatly in a bun on her head, and her tiny, black, rectangular frames are perched on her nose. She always seems so collected and put together, even though her wardrobe needs to shrink in size.
She spots me and takes hurried steps to the table to join me, sitting down across from me at the bistro table in the small restaurant. When she takes her glasses off and puts them away, she speaks.
“Sorry I’m late. My jackass neighbor from across the street parked his car right behind mine again, even though he has his own side of the curb. Took me forever to wiggle my car out of the small space he left me with.”
“Anyone I know?” I ask idly, my knee bouncing under the table as I impatiently wait for the time to spill it all.
“I don’t actually know his name. I’ve only been living with Maggie for a couple of months.”
She sounds as irritated as I feel, but for a completely different reason. I have a major crisis, and Brin is the only one not integrated into our group, so she can give me some insight as to what to do.
“He hasn’t called. At all. And now I don’t know what to do,” I ramble.
Her eyebrows go up in surprise, and then she tilts her head. “O…kay… I feel like I’m missing part of the story. Who hasn’t called?”
Groaning, I grip my head. How did I get into this mess? I agreed to casual, but after Thomas’s funeral, Kode Sterling seemed to disappear.
“He dropped me off almost two weeks ago after Thomas’s funeral, and he hasn’t called since. We agreed to a casual thing, but… hell, do I sound crazy? I feel crazy. Yes. I think I’m going crazy.”
I curse and drop my head back. Almost two weeks. That’s not really a terrible length of time. Then again, it might have just been a Vegas thing. Maybe we’re the type of people who only hook up in hotels when real life can’t pose a problem.
“Tria, I’m really trying to follow you, but I’m struggling. Who are you talking about?”
My knee bounces harder, and I mentally slap myself for the two—no, three—tall coffees and the one expresso I had. My heart is punishing me by beating painfully in my chest.
“Kode.”
“I thought he was dating Raya. And I thought he was your cousin,” she says with her nose turning up.
Laughing, I shake my head. “No. That’s Kade. Kade Colton. This is Kode Sterling.”
“That’s not confusing at all,” she says sardonically, but I’m too on edge to laugh again.
I should have stopped after one large coffee.
“Okay, so Kode Sterling… Wait, is he the one with blonde hair that hangs out with Dane at Silk?”
I nod, swallowing hard.
“Yes. That’s Dane’s brother.”
She lets an appreciative whistle out. “No wonder you’re all bent out of shape. He’s definitely worth looking at.”
“He’s… I honestly think he must have done something to me, because I can’t seem to get him out of my head.”
“So he hasn’t called, but nothing bad went down between you two.”
It’s not a question, so I don’t respond. I just wait patiently for her to do the part where she starts giving advice. Soon, hopefully. That’s what girlfriends do, right?
“Okay. So where did you hook up? I need some backstory.”
Quickly, I run through the sordid details, giving her everything from the first account to the last.
“So he got jealous over the guy at the pool and… Rye? Who the hell is Rye?”