I blushed as I thought about what had come next. More kissing. Tongues sliding. My fist gripping his shirt as I tugged his body closer to mine…
If I hadn’t had a complete nerdgasm and whipped out my journal to jot down my findings, we could’ve made out on that blanket for the rest of the afternoon.
That would’ve been nice,I thought with a pinch of regret. And then I wouldn’t have had to turn down Paul’s envelope, and I wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that Cade had seen me refuse it.
“Don’t tell Devlin.” A futile request, given the fact that she probably told him everything.
“Don’t tell me what?”
“Nothing,” I said when Devlin materialized seemingly out of nowhere.
“Cade and Tasha made out at the art museum today, and now she won’t let Paul pay her for her therapy since her sessions will soon include sex,” Rena said.
“Rena!”
Devlin blinked at his girlfriend, then at me. “Well. This has trouble written all over it.”
“It’s no one’s business but ours.” I sent a glare at Rena that she returned with a smile. “Thanks a lot, friend.”
“Devlin finds out everything.” She hoisted an eyebrow and sent him a saucy glance. “He has a way of making me talk.”
Devlin’s smile was somewhere between sinister and dopey. My heart swelled in spite of being made fun of. Their being together was really growing on me.
“I should get going.” I slid off the barstool and shouldered my purse.
“Devlin, promise me you won’t say anything to Cade or Paul.”
He pursed his lips in thought.
“You owe me.” I didn’t usually call in favors, but Devlin did owe me. He never would have pulled his head from his ass and gone back to Rena if it hadn’t been for my poking him with a stick. He owed me his happiness, dammit. And so did my best friend. “Rena?”
“We promise.” When Devlin opened his mouth, probably to argue with her, she held up a hand to stop him. “It’s none of our business that those two are about to get it on like monkeys, Dev.”
A smile twitched on his lips and I growled in the back of my throat, leaving in my wake a ripple of laughter from my so-called friends. But once I stepped outside into the sun, I realized their laughter was contagious. I was smiling too.
Because getting it on with Cade wasn’t a bad visual to start my day with.
—
There were not enough capital letters on the planet to express the ire I felt after my stupid pathophysiology class. Two of my former friends shared that class with me, but since Tony had kissed one and slept with the other, we no longer confided in one another.
I pecked a text into my cell, my thumbs blurring over the touch screen.
Hell hath a name and it is Dr. Shonram’s class! 50 min of my life I’ll never get back!!
I added a row of angry orange emojis, sent the text to Rena, and then waited.
Nothing.
I figured she was neck deep in beer bottles, given it was a Friday night. Great for her tip jar, but terrible for me. It left me with no one to bitch to. And yeah, we sort of snapped at each other earlier, but we had texted since. It didn’t take long to reclaim our rightful BFF status. We liked and respected each other too much to let Cade Wilson or Devlin Calvary come between us.
I hesitated over my phone for a moment, cleaning the fingerprints from the screen with the edge of my shirt. Before I overthought it, I typed a text to Cade and sent it.
I’d only typed one word—Hey—and now it sat on my screen, looking back at me lamely. My heart pounded. Rain pelted my windshield, just a few drops. I watched the water gather and blot out the scenery beyond, and decided to go to my apartment and tell my worries to a glass of wine and a bubble bath rather than sit here in the parking lot and rehash my miserable day to myself via unreturned text messages.
Before I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, it beeped. Cade had texted me back.
Hey. Sup?