I shrugged, lifting my beer to my lips. I downed two mouthfuls and let it clink back against the table. Another roar filled the bar, but the guys were both focused on me.
“Nothing,” I answered after a minute. “We both agreed it can’t happen again. It’s awkward as fuck, though, and I’m probably going to have to find an apartment to lease while I decide if I’m staying or not.”
“You should tell him.” Preston drunk from his bottle. “You’ve been best friends since you were kids.”
Noah tipped his bottle in his direction. “Reagan’s told me everything and then some at this point. I dunno about Leo, but if I were him and Ava was my sister, I’d want her to date someone I trusted.”
I rolled my shoulders back and sagged in the chair. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not right now while it’s all so fucked up.”
“Man, grow a pair.” Preston pointed at me. “I live with my sister’s best friend. Doesn’t matter than Reagan knew about the feelings Halley and I had. There isn’t a single situation where having feelings for your best friend’s sibling is gonna be easy.”
Noah nodded in agreement.
“Or you could just talk to Halley,” Preston continued. “She was where you are. She might have some advice.”
“Or you could just tell Leo,” Noah added. “It’s the fuckin’ easiest way to clear it all up.”
“Ava doesn’t want him to know.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Doesn’t matter what I want—I fucked up enough already.”
Noah held his hands up. “We’ve got your back, man. We won’t say a word.”
Preston agreed, and they both held their bottles in the middle of the table.
I clinked mine against theirs, and that was the end of the conversation.
I had a feeling it was only for tonight.
CHAPTER TWELVE – AVA
Making Friends Is Hard
Let it be said that Ava Parker was not good at making friends.
It didn’t matter if those friends were human or animals. It was not my forte. It was why I didn’t get along with Halley’s raccoons even though they took a liking to everyone who, well, wasn’t me.
I just wasn’t good at it.
I was more than a little socially awkward where being personal came into it. I could stand behind a bar for eight hours and serve eleventy-billion beers, but if even one of those people flirted with me, I was a goopy mess.
A goopy, awkward, flailing mess.
Apparently, that also extended to hedgehogs.
I’d said it a thousand times, and I was going to say it again: my fear of rodents and rodent-like creatures was not irrational. It was a genuine thing, and given some of the fears that were out there, mine was pretty normal.
It probably wasn’t phobia-level as I liked to dramatize—I saved that for the inability to be in deep water and that shit was actually no joke at all—but it was strong enough that seeing a rat was enough to render me catatonic.
All right. There was the drama.
I screamed like a little bitch.
I wasn’t going to do it now, though. I was going to be brave. I was going to rule the hedgehog world with cat food and mineral water.
Take that, tiny spiky pigs.
Hiiiiiii-yah.
Cue ninja stance.
I was no ninja. I definitely identified as more of an upside-down turtle.
I pulled the ring on the cat food Ethan insisted on buying for Mr. Prickles. I wasn’t sure what a spiky pig was doing eating cat food, but it wasn’t my pet, so I would do as I was told.
Holding the can tightly, I carried it into Ethan’s room. It felt weird to be here knowing he hadn’t. His bed was made—which was more than I could say for mine—and his room was perfectly tidy.
It was a bit annoying, actually.
Mine wasn’t tidy.
There was a bra here, a questionable pair of shorts there, and at least three hair ties, twenty bobby pins, and a long-lost phone lead under the bed.
That was before you counted all the rogue hairs that’d escaped my head and my hairbrush and inevitably got sucked up by the vacuum.
Hmm. I needed to vacuum today.
I stilled in front of the cage.
Mr. Prickles was on top of a small log house, and he froze when he noticed me.
If this were a TV show, a ‘whoosh’ noise would accompany a lightning bolt across the screen to signal a stare down.
His beady black eyes followed me. Maybe. It could have been the reflection from the sun streaming through Mr. Morning Lover’s window, but there was something unnerving about the way the hedgehog watched me.
I couldn’t believe I was having a staring contest with a hedgehog.
I needed a new hobby.
Any hobby.
I wasn’t fussy.
I blinked, ending the one-sided contest, and reached for the opening to the cage. Mr. Prickles was still staring at me. I got the feeling he didn’t trust me any more than I trusted him, and I was okay with it.