“Drew Maddox.”
“Whatever. If he’s the type to draw paparazzi, you need to be camera ready, and nothing says camera ready like red soles,” Evie declared just as Mike called into the bedroom from the kitchen.
“Evie! Are we out of frozen pizzas?”
“Yes!”
I could practically hear Mike’s shoulders slump.
“Dude. What am I supposed to eat for dinner then?”
Evie’s jaw dropped and turned her wide eyes to me as if to ask can you believe this shit?
“Please refrain from dude-ing me, Michael – I sent you a text that said ‘remember frozen pizzas’ when you were at the grocery store! So don’t talk to me about your dinner – okay?” Evie shouted back, heaving a massive sigh as she turned back to me again. “See?” she lowered her voice. “If you had any doubts about why you need to go out tonight, it’s because one day you might spend your Friday arguing with your fiancé about frozen pizzas. So before that happens, you better have all the fun in the world, and that starts with you looking happy that you’ve got this severely hot date.”
“I know. I just…”
Don’t know how to have fun when I keep thinking about Emmett.
I wanted to confess that much to Evie, but I also didn’t want to tell her the details about yesterday’s run-in outside the restaurant. I was still processing it myself – specifically everything Emmett said.
You lied to yourself all these years, and I let you because I knew you were hurting.
But I’m not the one who ruined everything.
You just want it to be me.
I kept telling myself it wasn’t true. I couldn’t sleep a wink last night at the motel, so I spent evening till sunrise trying to tell myself why Emmett was wrong. I mean he was the one who tortured me throughout high school. He was the one who ratted on me at the end of junior year. To everyone. He’d cost me my home, my reputation – all the friends I’d known since childhood.
These were the arguments that had been working for more than a decade, but after being called out by Emmett, they weren’t fully convincing me anymore.
Somehow, they were falling flat.
“Aly? You said you wanted this dress, right?” Evie said, waving a hand in my eye line to draw my stare back to the slinky number in her hands. I blinked at it. Then at her.
I was tempted to finally ask Evie about what she really thought ten years ago – on the first and last night we’d spoken about the junior year fight between Emmett and me. I had a feeling it was time to finally talk about it. Even if it meant facing every lie I’d convinced myself of in the past twelve years.
Every lie I’d molded my entire life for.
For the first time in forever, I felt almost brave enough to talk about it. But just as I opened my mouth, a text pinged in my phone.
“Oh, no!” Eyes wide, Evie crawled over to where it sat charging and looked at me. “Shit, Drew says he’s outside!” she said, tossing me the dress. “Hurry, hurry! Put that on!”
I caught the dress as a frantic Evie rushed up to help me squeeze into it.
And just like that, the moment was gone.
15
ALY
Evie’s dress was tight, short and a blush pink color that bordered on nude. It was a perfect match with the Louboutins on my feet, which Drew raised his eyebrows at as he helped me out of the car.
“Yeah, I don’t know how you girls walk in those, but I’m not complaining,” he chuckled, his green eyes sweeping up my legs before he put a hand on my back and ushered me into the restaurant.
The second we walked through the doors, eyes were on us because, well, Drew. But since we had so much immediate attention, I did my best to look less nervous and more excited. I mean I’d technically been wanting to come here for awhile. The name of the restaurant was Cantina. They were known for their lobster tacos and being the town’s toughest reservation – mostly because celebrities like Drew Maddox liked to spend their Friday nights there.
“I take it you come here a lot?” I said, making crappy conversation as Drew and I bypassed the massive wait at the door. As we followed the hostess to our table, I could feel the eyes of the crowd following us – or maybe just Drew.