When I Fall (Alabama Summer #3)

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to be thinking, feeling. I’ve read that last text from Reed more times than I can count. The conversation we had in the bathroom has been playing on loop in my head. He’s miserable. He wishes he could remember what happened between us. But he went out the next night and picked up another girl. What am I supposed to do with that?

Is he miserable? Or is his dick miserable?

I whip the potatoes vigorously. “There’s this guy,” I begin, and Riley is in front of me in seconds.

“I knew it. It’s always a guy.” She grabs a stool and sits next to the stove. “Go on,” she encourages, pushing her glasses back on her nose.

“Well, there’s technically two guys.”

“Fighting over you? I’m not hearing a problem yet.”

I turn off the burner when the potato flakes begin to boil. Laying the spoon down on the counter, I grab the nearest stool and sit down next to Riley. My shoulders roll forward as my elbows hit my legs.

“They’re not really fighting over me. I really, really like the one guy. He’s sweet and he’s funny. When we were together, it was . . . it was everything.” I look down into my lap, remembering what it was like, how easy it was with Reed. “I’ve never felt like that before with anyone, but now we’re not spending any time together. He says he’s miserable, but it’s not like he’s asking me out like the other guy, who seems really nice.”

“Are you feeling him?”

Reed’s question burns in my ears. He looked conflicted asking it. I felt sick answering him.

“Why aren’t you spending time with the first one anymore?” Riley asks. “Did you break up?”

I shake my head, keeping it turned down. “We were never really a couple.”

But we were something. Reed said we were something.

God, why didn’t I ask him what he meant by that? It’s like I turned into a speechless moron when he stepped into that bathroom.

“Ah, yeah, I’ve had relationships like that. No labels or whatever. So the other guy asked you out, but you’re still thinking about the first one. Right?”

I nod.

“If the first one is miserable, why isn’t he making a move?”

“He is, just not with me.” I look up when Riley groans. “I saw him the other night leaving my work with some other girl.”

She crosses her one leg over the other, crosses her arms over her chest, and scowls. “Oh, really? Did he see you?”

“Yes.”

“And he still left with her?”

“Yes.”

“Ass. I’m no longer team first guy.”

My stomach drops at the memory of Reed with that girl. Her hand on his chest. How he kept his eyes on me while she maneuvered him outside. I couldn’t look anywhere else. I was paralyzed, my eyes glued to Reed, my feet glued to the floor. Shaking so badly I nearly dropped the plates I was carrying.

I clear my head and focus on Riley. “They left together, then not even five minutes later I got a text from him saying nothing happened. But why? Why would he text me that? Did he feel guilty because I saw him? Would something have happened with her if I wasn’t working that night?”

“Mm.” Riley wraps some hair that’s fallen from her pony around her finger. She thinks silently for a moment. “Do you really think nothing happened?”

“He wasn’t lying. I know he wasn’t.” I pinch my legs together before my body answers that question for me. “Even if it had been a whole five minutes, Reed lasts a lot longer than that.”

Riley makes a noise between a strangled groan, and a choke. “Reed?” Her eyes widen, she leans closer. “As in Reed Tennyson?”

“Yes.” I lean back to reclaim some of my personal space. “Why?”

“That’s my brother!” she screams, jumping off her stool.

Wait, what? WHAT?

I stand so quickly the room starts to spin. My one hand flattens on the stool, my other presses against the side of my head. “I . . . are you sure?”

Her brother?

Reed is her brother?

Oh my God. I just told her he lasts longer than five minutes.

I cover my face with my hands, groaning, wishing the world would just swallow me up already.

Riley wraps her hand around my arm and shakes me. I peek at her through my fingers.

“Yes, I’m sure! Beth! You slept with Reed? You really, really like him? Oh my God!” She sucks in a loud, startled breath, releasing her hold on me. Her nostrils flare. “I can’t believe that idiot picked up another chick in front of you. I’m calling him.”

I grab her wrist as she reaches into her pocket. “No! Please don’t. Riley, don’t say anything to him about this. I’m embarrassed enough as it is.”

She must see my panic. God knows I hear it in my voice.

Looking down at her arm, Riley slowly pulls her hand out of her pocket, empty. She picks up her stool and carries it back over to the counter. “Okay, I won’t say anything,” she says over her shoulder. “Who’s the other guy? Maybe he’s my cousin.”

“Haha.” I slide my stool back underneath the counter. Christ, how small is this town? “His name is CJ. I don’t know his last name, but he’s a cop.”

“Ohhh.” Our eyes meet, and she smiles playfully. “I know who he is. I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen him with Ben Kelly and Luke Evans. The three of them together are like, almost too hot to look at.”

I think back to my lunch date with the girls. The guys in their uniforms. How I contemplated committing a felony for the first time in my life.

“Mm mmm,” I agree, letting my hair untuck behind my ear to hide my blush.

Riley leans her hip against the serving table. “So, you were hanging out with my brother, now you’re not, for whatever reason. CJ asked you out, and now Reed is miserable? Did I get it right?”

I grab the pot of mashed potatoes and carry it over to the serving table. Riley moves down to allow me some room. “Pretty much.” I look into her eyes, the same strange, pale-blue color as Reed’s.

Way to miss that gigantic clue, Beth.

“It’s not that I don’t want to go out with CJ. I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t. But hearing Reed say he wishes . . . certain things, I don’t know. I just feel like we’re nothing right now, and I don’t want to be nothing with Reed. I miss talking to him. I miss hanging out with him.”

“It sounds like he misses you too.”

I give her a weak smile, letting my arms fall to my sides. “But in what way? What was I to him? He told me we were something. What? Friends? More than that?”

Riley lifts her shoulders, then grabs a few empty serving trays from the shelf below the table.

“If my brother is jealous because you’re going out with another guy, which it definitely sounds like he is, I’d say you were in the more-than-that category. But,” she pauses with a cautious look. “This is my brother we’re talking about, and he doesn’t get jealous, or miserable, or anything else over women anymore, so, I don’t know. The last woman I ever saw him feel anything for was his stupid ex, and that was nine years ago.”