“Then you dropped out.”
“Why did I need a chemistry degree? What on Earth was I going to do with that in White Peak?” She raised her eyebrows, then looked at Kinsley. “And it totally counts. It wasn’t a peck. We full-on made out.”
“You studied chemistry?” Seb asked.
“That’s what you took from that?” Saylor blinked at him. “You’re weird.”
“I don’t know what to do with all this information,” Colton said, staring between her and Tori.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. In the shower,” Tori said dryly.
“And I’m going to find my mom to see where our drinks are.” I got up, holding up my hands. I could not listen to those two bicker their way through their sexual frustration anymore, and nor did I want to hear more about their apparently wild college years while I was actually studying for a degree I…
Used.
In my bookstore.
All that time, wasted, on the Dewey decimal system, only for my best friends to never put a book back in the alphabetical order I needed.
Sigh.***“That is some serious rapping.”
Slowly, I nodded, looking toward the karaoke stage where Kinsley was currently spitting Eminem like her life depended on it.
“Is that a skill she picked up during pot parties at college, too?”
I almost choked on my drink and spat it everywhere. I elbowed Seb. “No. It’s one she’s always had that only comes out when she’s drunk.”
“Oh. She’s drunk? And she can rap like that?” His eyes widened. “I know rappers who can’t rap like that.”
“Apparently my friends are full of surprises,” I replied dryly. “It seems to be a theme tonight.”
“You really didn’t know about their… adventures… in college?”
“Why would I have known? Unlike them, I actually studied.”
“I can’t believe Saylor was a chemistry major.”
“Yeah, nobody can. I can’t imagine why,” I finished dryly. “She realized that while she loved chemistry, it was a waste of money because she knew she’d never leave White Peak. So she dropped out, got a full-time job, and stayed living with us off-campus until the year was done.”
“She didn’t come home?”
“Why would she? What would she have done?”
“I sometimes forget how joined at the hip you three are.”
“We’re not joined at the hip,” I lied. “Well, not so much now Kinsley and Josh are dating. Apparently they need time together.”
“Does it get in the way of your book club?”
“I don’t like the way you said that.”
He grinned, leaning back and resting his arm over the back of my chair. His thumb brushed against the back of my arm, and the sensation of the soft pad of his thumb against my bare skin made goosebumps break out down my arm.
At least I didn’t shiver. That really would have given it away.
Could I blame this on the wine?
I really had to stop drinking wine around Sebastian Stone.
It made me feel things.
No, it didn’t.
It made me acknowledge these things I felt, and that was a very scary prospect.
Because I didn’t want to.
My life was simple before he came back. I held a grudge against him, I was happily single, and lived an easy life.
Now everything was complicated.
This was the reason I didn’t really date. Feelings were difficult and complicated, and I didn’t have the time for them.
Lying in bed with Sebastian on Saturday night had awoken several things inside me—things I’d really thought I’d left behind years ago. Those deep feelings that only come from knowing someone.
They existed because despite how we’d changed, he was still the teenage boy I fell in love with all those years ago. He was still the same guy I laughed and joked with, who threatened to break the noses of the guys who hurt me, who really did help me with all the math homework I could never figure out.
And I really, really had to get to the bottom of how I felt so I could clear it out of my system.
I didn’t know how he felt. The only reason he was going along with this whole fake relationship thing was because I really didn’t think he wanted to tell his grandpa the truth.
At least, I thought that was the only reason.
The truth was that I didn’t know. I hadn’t asked, and I wasn’t going to ask.
I didn’t want to know the answer.
Which was probably why I hadn’t told Amos the truth either.
It was easier to just… let it go on. Until there was a real reason to stop.
“Are you all right?”
I jerked out of my own head and back into the moment. Seb’s blue eyes were boring into mine, and I blinked. “I’m fine. Sorry. I was in my own little world. I’m a bit tired.”
“Do you want me to take you home?”
I looked at the bottle in his hand. “Can you drive?”
He paused. “Shit. Probably not. I can call a cab, or I can walk you home?”