Stone Cold

“Of course I do.” He shoots me a dirty look before his eyes return to the pitiful shit brown they were before. I can love this guy like a brother, but I don’t have to love everything he does. “I can’t tell her. I don’t want to lose her.”

“You do realize how your actions last night contradict what you’re telling me right now …”

“I was blitzed. You know that. Wasn’t thinking straight.” He sniffs. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“It’s not about picking sides.”

His phone vibrates in his pocket before I can elaborate.

“Shit. It’s her,” he says when he checks it. Tapping the green button, he answers, “Hey, babe …”

His voice is sweet and sleepy—which tells me he intends to act like he simply slept through the missed calls.

“Yeah, sorry,” he says in the same tone he used to use when he’d play hooky from the golf course he worked at back in high school. “Jude and I went out last night and then I ended up crashing as soon as we got home.”

My throat tightens with every lie he feeds her, and I take a good, hard look at my best friend. From the moment we met in kindergarten, we were as thick as thieves. We’ve always had each other’s backs, always covered for each other without question. What one of us lacked, the other never failed to make up for it. His extroversion cancelled out my introversion. My good grades made up for his mediocre ones.

But today I’m seeing him a new light.

With his hair disheveled, the stench of bad dec,isions wafting off of him, and that fake-ass voice he’s using, there’s nothing admirable about him now. He’s nothing but a sorry man trying not to lose a girl he shouldn’t have had in the first place.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” he says. “I hate when we fight … I know … I’m going to grab a shower … love you too …”

He ends the call and releases a hard breath. “Jesus. That was the most terrifying forty-eight seconds of my life.”

I’d speak, but my jaw is clenched too tight.

“She’s on her way home now,” he says. “I doubt she’ll ask, but just in case she does … you’ll cover for me right? You know I’d do the same thing for you.”

Grabbing my phone and keys and stepping into my sneakers, I head to the door. I need air, space, and copious amounts of distance from this entire situation. But before I leave, I turn back and look him dead in the eye.

“I would never ask you to do the same thing for me,” I say, “because I’d never put myself—or anyone I love—in that position in the first place.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Stone

* * *

“So what were your reasons then?” Jovie’s eyes glint from the other side of the island, her head cocked sideways.

“My reasons were congruent with those of an immature twenty-two-year-old who thought he knew everything about everything.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s such a Stone thing to say. Try again.”

“Does it matter what my reasons were?”

“It matters to me,” she says. “If you weren’t bothered by my constant, twenty-four-seven presence, as you put it … what were you bothered by?”

I swallow a mouthful of wine to buy some time. No good can come of being honest. It wouldn’t have made her mine back then, and it won’t make her mine now. Jude was far from perfect and maybe he didn’t deserve her, but he doesn’t deserve to be stabbed in the back by his best friend for it.

“I thought we were supposed to be talking about whether or not I’ve ever been in love,” I change the subject. “Wasn’t that the original question at hand?”

“That was the original original question. The question we were going to discuss tonight was what you really thought of me back in the day,” she says.

She got me with that one.

“You must be one hell of a lawyer.” She tilts her wineglass toward me. “The way you tap dance around questions so effortlessly.” Leaning forward, she drinks me in. “That head of yours has always fascinated me.” Jovie’s full lips tug up at the side. “I never had to wonder what Jude was thinking—he wore all of his emotions on his sleeve. What I saw was what I got with him. But with you …” her voice trails and her eyes grow distant. “I probably thought about you way more than I had any business thinking about my boyfriend’s best friend.”

My stomach flips.

“What do you mean?” I can’t help but ask that question because I may not ever get the chance again.

“Didn’t you ever wonder?” Her eyes flick to mine. “I just … I met you before him—even though you claim you don’t remember—and I’ve always wondered what if I never would’ve met him that night?”