Holy shit, Cassidy.
Mads sucked in a sharp breath, and the air in the kitchen crackled with tension. I expected my friend to lose his mind, but instead he laughed, snatched up one of Cassidy’s cooling cookies, and raised it at her. Almost as if saying, sick burn and I respect it. He took a bite of the cookie, which was too hot because he left his mouth open.
Cassidy turned her attention back to me and her voice was hesitant. “How are you doing?”
I sighed. “You saw the post.”
“Not to be a dick,” Preston said, “but everyone’s seen it, dude.”
“Your dad?”
He swallowed his bite. “I doubt it. He doesn’t really do social media.”
“Plus, he’s been in surgery all afternoon,” Cassidy added.
“Any idea how he’s going to react when he finds out?” Because there was no way Dr. Lowe would stay in the dark about this. Our suburb of Nashville was like any other small town. Everyone was in each other’s business.
“You worried he’s going to say you can’t stay here?” Preston’s tone was skeptical.
Maybe it was a stupid question. Dr. Lowe had let me stay here after the prom debacle, and he’d always been a ‘cool’ dad. Part of it was because he was young, and the other part was he wanted desperately to repair his relationship with his son.
I’d been so envious of Preston. He’d gotten away with murder, while my parents had kept me under lock and key.
“Even if he said you couldn’t stay here—which he wouldn’t—it wouldn’t matter. Cassidy and I already talked about it, and we overrule him, two votes to one.”
I blinked in surprise, looking at Cassidy for confirmation, and saw her nod. It kind of floored me. “Thanks.”
Preston shoved the rest of the cookie in his mouth, garbling his words. “Just don’t film anything here, okay?”
“We’ll try to refrain,” I said dryly.
For once, sex was the last thing on my mind.
Preston led us upstairs to the guest bedroom, gave us the Wi-Fi password, and left us to finish mowing the yard. Later that night, we ate pizza with him and Cassidy, which gave me weird flashbacks to high school. They’d been best friends once, but it felt like a lifetime ago. So much had changed, but I was glad to see they were repairing the friendship.
Mads and I both had a hard time falling asleep that night.
We spent a lot of it on our phones, fielding questions from people who’d reached out to ask if we’d seen the pictures. Plus, we were constantly checking to see if the posts had gotten removed. It was draining, but I was so fucking grateful I wasn’t going through it alone.
I lay in the guest bed with her snuggled up against me, both of us trying to fall asleep, but I was sure her mind was as noisy as mine. Everything had been going so great, and then it changed in the blink of an eye.
A little after midnight, the mechanical whine of the garage door ground out below us, signaling Dr. Lowe was home.
“It’s late,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. He usually isn’t here whenever I come over. He’s always working or on call.”
“That must be hard for Cassidy. Was it for Preston when you guys were younger? Not having his dad around?”
It had been awesome as far as Troy and I were concerned. It was total freedom at the Lowe house. “I don’t know. It might have been better his dad was so busy. Things weren’t great with them even before Cassidy entered the picture.”
“But they’re doing good now?” She shifted on my arm, getting comfortable. “I mean, they’re all living together.”
“Which is fucking crazy to me. She’s Preston’s ex, and now she’s with his dad.”
Maybe my tone had been too harsh because Mads seemed surprised. “Are you mad at her?”
Was I? I frowned. “No, it’s just—the situation sucks for my friend.”
“I’m sure it’s not easy for her either, but you can’t blame people for who they fall in love with.” Her voice lost some of its power. “Sometimes it happens, no matter how much that person might not want it to.”
I went still.
She wasn’t talking about Cassidy anymore, and I held my breath, waiting for her to say something else. For her to tell me she’d tried so hard not to fall for me, but it had happened anyway.
Part of me was scared, but a much larger part of me wanted to hear it.
And if she said it, well . . . I’d tell her it had been the same for me.
But the screen of her phone lit up with a notification, casting a pale, eerie light in the room and made her roll away from me. She glanced at her phone, then snatched it off the nightstand and bolted upright.
“Nina said the posts are down.”
I picked up my phone. Not only was the Instagram post gone, but the entire profile no longer existed. “Did they take down his whole account?”