As friends, dumbass. What else?
Which clearly was the answer. I hated that I was overthinking this.
I didn’t rent a car this time. I’d be with West and Anson often enough, and when I wasn’t, I could always use a car service. They’d offered me a spare room in their house, but I’d declined. They had the whole week together, with neither of them having to travel and Anson not having his grueling practice schedule, so they didn’t need me taking up space in their house.
West would be picking me up, though. I’d taken an early morning, direct flight from San Francisco, so we were having lunch first.
I sent a quick text letting him know I was on my way out. I’d only brought a carry-on with me.
It was cloudy when I stepped outside, a light drizzle trickling down. It only took a minute for West to pull up. I tossed my bag in the back and jumped into the passenger seat. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
“Not much. Just at the airport, picking up a stray,” he teased.
“Hey, fucker. You’re the one who was begging me to come. I need you, Jeremy. I miss you. My life isn’t complete without you close.”
“Wow…I had no idea you’d become so delusional in my absence.”
We chuckled. Christ, I really had missed him. I’d always loved spending time with him, but seeing how happy West was ever since he and Anson found each other…there was nothing like it.
We chatted as West drove us to a restaurant. It was a Mexican place with a brightly colored sign out front and lots of windows to let the light in. It wasn’t too busy, so we were seated right away in a booth near the back, and then they brought us chips and salsa, my absolute favorite.
It wasn’t until after we put our order in—fajitas for me and tacos for West—that he asked, “How are you doing?”
“I don’t like this emotionally mature West. I want my don’t-ask-about-anything-personal friend back.”
He cocked a playful brow. “Blame Anson.”
“No…it was all you.” As cocky as West was, he sometimes downplayed his own participation in the good things. His life might have started to change when Anson came into it, but West had made those changes.
“So, how’s the weather?” West joked.
“Oh, I see how you are. We can talk about me but not you?” I dipped a chip into my salsa and took a bite. “I’m fine, West. You forget that this decision was made almost a year ago now, and I knew it was coming even before that.”
“Maybe I forget because I only found out a few months ago.”
He might have had a point. I wasn’t going to tell him that, though. “I don’t miss being married to Bobby. Hell, in a lot of ways, things aren’t much different than they were before. I didn’t see him much then, and I don’t see him now, but we do talk often. He’s enjoying all the London boys.”
West chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me. But while on the surface things aren’t much different, inside they have to be. He was your husband.”
“And now he’s one of my best friends.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll keep my nose out of your business. I was nearly breaking out in hives anyway.”
I couldn’t help smiling. There was the West I knew. “So what’s the plan for the week?”
“I wanted to sit down with you and go over fundraising numbers. I’d like to start planning next year’s budget, activities, stuff like that. It’ll be here before we know it. Darren’s been asking for other ways he can help too. I think he wants to run some kind of fitness program next summer. He talked to Ans about helping this week too, which is great because we can always use the extra hands. He’s never hesitated to jump in, but for some reason, he’s incredibly into it right now. Anson says he’s been acting weird.”
My pulse was suddenly racing as if I were currently involved in said fitness clinic. That was…sweet and perfectly him and…weird how? “Oh really?” I took a drink of my water to distract myself.
“Oh really, what?” West asked.
“Darren. The weird thing. How’s he acting weird?”
Confusion made his eyes do this strange clouding thing. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my husband. Why? The two of you have plans to egg our house while you’re here?”
I laughed, memories flittering through my brain, lightness filling my chest. That had been fun. “We didn’t, but now that you mention it, maybe I should call him to see if we can make that happen.”
He cocked a brow. “You’ll clean it up this time.”
“What if we do it right before I leave?”
“I know where you live too.”
The waitress arrived then with our food. It looked delicious, but I was thinking about Darren wanting to participate more at the center lately, Anson thinking he was acting different, West not knowing how close we were, and me wishing I could talk to West about…well, everything. But how could I? The friendship part I could do, but it would be wrong to share Darren’s private business with West, especially when he was married to Darren’s best friend.