Except if I said I was in love with Karson.
Then I’d get a reaction. Then I wouldn’t be able to hide from the truth. Then it would become something I didn’t want it to turn into.
“I would tell you,” I waved them away casually before taking a sip of my drink. “But then I’d have to kill you.” I tapped my nose. “Top secret.”
Each woman leaned forward in her chair. “Okay, you’re really not going to tell us about his cock and his kinks?” Stella asked. “I shared everything about Jay.”
“That was your prerogative,” I replied. “Plus, you needed to share about that shit. It was novel worthy. There is nothing to know about Karson and me. We’re fucking. I wanted to tell you all, now I have. And we can move on.”
Each of them regarded me with shrewd gazes.
“Fine,” Zoe eventually stated.
Yasmin and Stella gaped at her. Zoe was not known to let sleeping dogs lie.
“She wants to keep it locked down, she keeps it locked down,” Zoe shrugged.
I had never loved my friend more in that moment.
The rest of the brunch passed by as the ones before it had, and even though the weight of lies was off my shoulders, I still felt heavy with the truth I was denying myself.
I went to Karson’s after brunch, texting him to let him know he could tell Jay that we were fucking at their next slumber party.
I couldn’t tell if he’d smiled at that or not, he’d merely replied telling me to ‘get my ass to his place.’
And he told me he was going surfing but to go there and wait for him.
Surfing.
We’d been fucking for months, yet I didn’t know he surfed. Yes, he lived right on the beach, and these were some of the best waves in the area, but Karson didn’t strike me as a surfer.
It was endearing and interesting. He was still out in the water by the time I arrived, and although the idea of watching him emerge from the water was tempting, I realized I hadn’t been alone there since the one time I broke in.
Then, I’d reasoned it wasn’t ethical to snoop. Now that we were sleeping together, I figured I was entitled.
First were his bookshelves. They took up a whole wall with the fireplace in the middle. The mantle held candles, no photos. There were no photos anywhere in the house. That I’d noticed. I’d figured he didn’t have anyone to have photos of. His father killed his mother. He killed his father. He didn’t have any siblings that I was aware of. And I doubted he had any extended family who gave a shit about him.
He didn’t have friends, apart from Jay, and that dynamic was much too complicated to categorize, though I knew it wasn’t the kind of relationship where they’d pose for selfies.
I didn’t like that. That Karson didn’t have any photos. My entire home was covered in photos. Of my adventures, my girlfriends, my parents. I had a picture from Stella’s party blown up and put over the fireplace in my sitting room.
Karson deserved that. Photos, memories littering the surfaces of his home.
My fingers trailed along the spines of the books. A lot of autobiographies, books on the brain, men type things. Then my finger paused on a book that had a visibly worn spine.
The Duke & I.
I grinned as I found countless other historical romances nestled between all the badass books.
“Wine, darlin’?” Karson’s voice didn’t surprise me as I’d heard him trudging up the stairs of his balcony. I’d just been too intrigued to turn.
“Definitely,” I told him, slipping a book off the shelf. “Maybe then we can read together.”
I turned, a wicked grin on my face while brandishing the book with the muscled man clutching onto a woman in a gown.
“I’ve read this one, and it’s particularly saucy. I approve,” I teased.
Karson, for his part, did not look ashamed. Not even a little. The corner of his mouth turned up.