Chad is tapping away on his own phone, responding to one of those texts he got, if I had to guess.
“Something important?” I ask, leaning against a nearby chair.
He glances up distractedly at me, takes a moment to belatedly hear my question, then shakes his head. “Nah. Just a quick thing.” He pockets his phone. “Alright, let’s get outta here before Nadine Strong finds us and takes deep insult with our abrupt and random departure during her catered dinner.”
Nadine is a name you hear exactly zero times if you live in LA.
And six hundred times a day if you live in Spruce.
A glance over my shoulder reveals a skinny woman with huge hair fussing over the long table of finger foods—which I did not visit for whatever reason—and she’s in the middle of chewing out some poor server who’s done something I can’t venture. For all I know, he just looked at her wrong, or spilled ranch dressing on her fancy nails, or said something bad about football.
No matter, I quickly turn to Chad, wide-eyed. “Good idea.”
The pair of us are out of that cafeteria in record time.
It isn’t long before I’m on the road again with Chad—for the second night in a row. But this time, everything has changed.
We’ve been intimate.
Well, as intimate as a pair of horny guys who don’t know how to get all the way out of their clothes are.
We’ve learned things about each other. Secrets. Sides of us we don’t show to just anyone.
All of these things have brought us so much closer than I’d have ever imagined a guy like him and a guy like me would ever be. There was a time I genuinely thought I’d punch Chad Landry right in the jaw if I ever saw him again.
And here I am, riding in a truck with him, heading to a party in the rural outreaches of Spruce, Texas.
Who knew?
“So is Sal Pal, like, your boyfriend back in LA or somethin’?”
I am so caught off-guard by his question, I turn two giant eyes onto him, then burst into laughter. “You kidding me? Salvador? And me?” I scoff at that, still laughing. “That deserves a big hell no written in scarlet-red letters. Salvador is … ugh, where do I even begin? I mean, there’s so much to say, yet I don’t feel like saying a damned bit of it.”
“You don’t got to. Was just curious.” He chuckles privately to himself, then turns his full focus back on the road, steering his truck one-handed.
“And besides, if I had a boyfriend, I wouldn’t cheat on him like this,” I add lightly, straightening up in my seat. “I’m not a cheater. I’m loyal to the men I’m in a committed relationship with.”
“Hey, don’t take no offense or nothin’. Was just askin’. Sounds like you don’t like this Sal fellah very much.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“Oh.” Chad’s face tightens with confusion. “Oh, wait. The best friend you got issues with that you don’t wanna talk about?”
Okay, so maybe I’ll have to elaborate whether I want to or not. “He’s … It’s a little bit complicated. Long story short, he started dating my ex-boyfriend a year ago.”
“Oh, shit. I’m already gettin’ a picture.”
“And he isn’t just any ex-boyfriend,” I go on. “This ex is, like, the one who ruined my life in college. He hurt me worse than I’d ever been hurt.”
“Freshman year of college?” Chad blows air out his lips, eyes wide with surprise. “Wait a sec. So was he your first boyfriend, then? This ex of yours?”
“Yep. Not a great start to my love life. Terrible, in fact. But it happened, and I can’t take back that first ‘yes’ I gave him when he asked me out in the middle of a Fundamentals of Textiles class. It was fashion school,” I clarify when Chad makes a face. “He didn’t last. Dropped right out after the first semester, long story short. He had a drug addiction. It was sad, it was trying, and I was too young to really understand how to help him.”
“Damn. That’s some heavy stuff.” Chad flicks on his blinker, then takes a slow right.
“Heavy isn’t the half of it.” I let out a cynical chuckle. “Now fast-forward six-ish years, and my ex is suddenly a totally new person—sober for four years, all cleaned up, sweet as a Hershey’s bar … and he’s dating my best friend.”
“That’s gotta sting.”
“It did. I cut off my hair.”
“Oh.” Chad shoots me a look—or rather, my head of hair—and an appreciative smile breaks over his face. “Well, if I didn’t think it would be a totally insensitive thing to say, I’d say I’m glad they got you to cut your hair. You look fuckin’ good, Goodwin.”
“Why do you keep calling me by my last name? It’s weird.”
“Athlete thing. So why’s this Sal Pal guy still your best friend? Sounds like he kinda did you wrong, datin’ your ex like that.”