“If she makes you happy, E, I think Hanna would be okay with it. She’s pretty chill.”
“I don’t know how chill she’d be about this. I keep telling Karly it will all be okay, but honestly, I don’t know how she’s going to react.”
Lainey tilts her head, sympathizing with me. “What are you going to do?”
I stare at her for a second, but she taps her knee against mine, “It’s okay to fall in love again. Even if it’s with Karly.”
Love? Hell, she might as well have tossed me into a deep freezer because I could feel the color draining from my face. That word scared the shit out of me.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Did you leave her to come back here?”
Reassuringly I rest my hand on her knee, “I was coming back anyway.”
Lainey is important to me, and I don’t want her to think she was any kind of inconvenience.
“You know I can tell when you’re lying before you even lie. You get all clammy, and your eyes do this weird darting thing.”
“I’m not lying. I was coming back.”
“When?” She pries.
“Tomorrow,” I admit, “but it’s okay, really.”
She stands up, gathering her things. “Let’s go to Charleston.”
“No, Lainey. Really it’s fine.”
Her face twists, “You don’t want her to know that I know?”
She looks betrayed and thinks I’m regretting telling her a secret. Honestly, I do plan to tell people I have feelings—whatever those may be—for Karly, so why not start here?
“Not at all. I just think we should head out in the morning.”
She nods, a mischievous grin invading her lips. “I’ll set my alarm.”
“Do you have a sitter for tomorrow?” I ask, and she nods as she heads to the guest room and shuts the door.
I immediately pick up my phone and begin typing a text to Karly, unsure of how to lead off the conversation but ultimately settle for:
Me: Houston, we have a problem.
I feel a jump in my chest when I see those dots appear that she’s already texting me back.
Dirty little secret: Oh no. What happened?
Me: My big mouth.
The dots appear again, then disappear, over and over, until I’m afraid she isn’t going to text me back at all. I’m sort of worried that she’ll be upset, so I reach behind my head and grip the back of my neck, the stress apparent in my tight muscles.
I mean, other than Hanna, I haven’t ever really done relationships. After everything that happened with Emma that day, I sort of withdrew from social events. Hanna kinda just fell into my lap. I never really saw us as more than just friends until I realized that maybe we all three could live a comfortable life together. Ellie’s dad wasn’t in the picture—at least not when we first met— and Hanna was a good girl. So yeah, one serious girlfriend basically my whole life doesn’t really mean I have the whole thing down. And this with Karly feels more like a situationship. It’s undefined and uncertain. So I don’t really know how to approach any of this. So I shoot for the truth.
Me: I told Lainey about us.
Dirty little secret: What exactly did you tell her?
Me: That I was falling for you.