“I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
“Sure. I guess I’d better start calling you Mother Teresa then?” she quips, her brow lifting in amusement. “Or you could just tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth. And it’s not about the girl.” Lie. “It’s about Alex. He’s making a mistake, and I want to see him realise it before he ends up in the middle of something he can’t get out of.”
“Right.”
“You want a drink?” I ask, my mouth burning up and my eyes threatening to start running if I keep eating that pizza so fast.
“Sure. I will get to the bottom of this, though.”
“There’s nothing to get to the bottom of, I. I’m just looking out for Alex. So what’s going on with you? Those marks courtesy of someone serious?” I ask after placing a beer beside her.
Yeah, my best friend might be a girly girl, but when she’s with me, she’s just one of the guys, only with a more tempting body. Not that I’d ever go there. There has never been, nor will there ever be anything like that between us.
“Pfft, I don’t do serious and you know it.”
“Someone’s going to make you change your mind eventually, I.”
“They’re going to have to be something really fucking special. You know I have no desire for the whole married-with-kids bullshit my parents want for me.”
“I know, I know. But you deserve someone decent. Your hookups are dickheads.”
She laughs, humouring me as if we haven’t had this conversation a million times.
“So are you the pot or the kettle this time, D?”
I shake my head. “I ain’t like that, and you know it.”
“Fucking faceless women to get your kicks? Yeah, that’s exactly what you’re like. You don’t have to sugarcoat anything for me.”
“Nah, I haven’t been with anyone like that in ages.”
My eyes fly to hers as shock renders me speechless. I did not mean to say that out loud.
Lifting my hand, I rub the back of my neck.
“Keep talking. I fucking knew there was a girl.”
“No,” I backtrack. “I’ve just been too busy, and no one is really doing it for me.”
“So you weren’t thinking about her when I came in then? She wasn’t the reason your sweats were looking suspiciously tight.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“You’re such a bad liar. Maybe I should just call Alex,” she taunts, pulling her phone from her hoodie pocket. But I know she’s calling my bluff. She wouldn’t ring him. The two of them have some weird love–hate thing going on that I’ve never really got to the bottom of.
“Go on then. Although he’s probably too busy nursing his wounds.”
“Or maybe the girl who’s got you so twisted up in knots is doing it for him. Kissing his boo-boos and rubbing it all better.” She wiggles her brows at me, and I smile. Although all the while, I’m dying inside at the image she just painted.