Prologue
August 30, 2013
Paisley
I FIDGETED WITH my coffee cup as I tried to find the courage to say what I’d held back for so long. Twelve years. Twelve years of waiting, hoping, and aching were about to come to an end. With a deep breath in, I looked up into the blue eyes of my best friend, Eli, and tensed my body as I began.
“This guy I met, Brett, he’s—well, he’s different. Like, he’s a game changer for me. I look at him, and I have no doubt of that. I have no doubt that I could spend the rest of my life with him.” I laughed uneasily and shrugged. “And I know that sounds crazy after only a few weeks, but, honestly, I knew it the first day I met him. I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t like the world stopped turning or anything, there was just a feeling I had.” Swallowing past the tightness in my throat, I glanced away for a moment as I strained to hold on to the courage I’d been building up all week. “But there’s this other guy, and I swear this guy owns my soul.”
Eli crossed his arms and his eyebrows rose, but I didn’t allow myself to decipher what his expression could mean at that moment. If I tried to understand him—like I always did—then I would quickly talk myself out of saying the words I’d been thinking for far too long.
“Eli,” I whispered so low the word was almost lost in the chatter from the other people in the coffee shop. “I have been in love with you since I was thirteen years old,” I confessed, and held my breath as I waited for any kind of response from him.
Nothing about him changed for a few seconds until suddenly his face lost all emotion. But it was there in his eyes, like it always was: denial, confusion, shock.
I wanted to run, but I forced myself to blurt out the rest. “I’ve kept quiet for twelve years, and I would’ve continued to if I hadn’t met Brett. These last few weeks have been casual, but I know he wants it to be more. But if there is a chance of an us, then there would be absolutely no thoughts of anything else with him.”
Eli just continued to stare at me like I’d blown his mind, and my body began shaking as I silently begged him to say something—anything.
After twelve years of being his best friend, of being used by him as a shield from other women, of being tortured by his pretending touches and kisses . . . I was slowly giving up on us. I couldn’t handle the heartache anymore. I couldn’t stand being unknowingly rejected again and again. I couldn’t continue being his favorite person in the world for an entirely different reason than he was mine. I couldn’t keep waiting around for Eli Jenkins.
This was it for me.
“Eli, I need to know.” I exhaled softly and tried to steady my shaking as I asked, “Is there any possibility of there being an us?”
Chapter One
Two months earlier . . . July 5, 2013
Paisley
“YOU LOOK LIKE someone just ran over your cat, wrapped it in Christmas paper, and delivered it to you for your birthday while saying, ‘Trick or treat.’ ”
I blinked quickly as the bar where we spent most of our Friday nights, O’Malley’s, came back into focus. I shot my friend Kristen a look, and stammered, “I don’t have a ca— My birthday is in September . . . Wait, none of that made sense.”
She jerked her head in the direction I’d been staring blindly at. “Exactly, and if he’d taken one look in this direction, he would’ve dropped that girl like she was on fire and come running over here to see what was wrong with you.”
“That obvious?” Kristen nodded, and I groaned. “The only good thing about Eli being in Texas last weekend was I didn’t have to watch him doing this.”
Looking over to where my best friend was currently pulling close some girl he’d just met as he leaned down to kiss her, I swallowed past the lump in my throat and looked away as I tried to ignore the way it felt like I was five seconds from throwing up.
Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
“Pay!”
“Oh no,” I breathed, and looked at Kristen to act like I hadn’t heard Eli. “If he makes me play pool with him while he makes out with another girl again, I will lose it!”
“He’s smiling, at least he didn’t see you moping—and he’s walking over here. With her. Right now. He’s—”
“Pay, we’re gonna head out, were you ready to leave?”
I turned to look at them with a smile plastered on my face, but it was entirely possible I looked like I was grimacing. “Well . . .” I began, but the girl in Eli’s arms held up her hand.
She made a sickened face as her head jerked up to look at Eli, then back at me. Long seconds passed as she looked me up and down with her lips parted in disgust. “Um . . . ew! I’m, like, not really into that whole threesome thing. So gross. Yano?”
I wanted to remind her that “you” and “know” were two separate words . . . but with the way she looked, I was surprised she knew that Eli plus her plus me equaled three and not the color burrito, so I kept that to myself.
Eli’s face pinched together like he’d eaten something sour, and before he said something that would inevitably crush me even more tonight, I tried to speak his latest pick’s language. “Ohmigod, like, ew, right?”
Kristen’s hand flew to her mouth as beer sprayed out, and Eli’s lack-of-amused expression let me know that he knew what I was doing.
At least I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up anymore.
“Threesomes are so way gross,” I continued, not like I’d know. But the girl nodded her head and pursed her lips.
“So, like, is she gonna watch?” she asked, and it took everything in me not to shoot Eli a look that said: Really? This is what you want?
“No, she’s not, and there’s no threesome. This is my best friend, Paisley, I drove her.”
The girl laughed awkwardly and ran her hand up Eli’s chest. “Well, can’t she get, like, a ride home or something?”
Of course I could, and it was something that happened often when Eli decided he wanted to drive me somewhere—because chances were he was going to end up leaving with someone else, and I always offered to stick around. But I knew right then, as did Kristen, judging by her snort, that I wouldn’t be getting a ride home with anyone other than Eli, and this girl had just made sure her night with Eli was over.
Eli’s eyes widened and he blinked slowly before looking down at the girl. “No, she can’t. I just told you, she’s my best friend. She came with me, and she’s going to be leaving with me . . . you won’t.”
“Are you serious?” she scoffed when Eli moved her arm away.
“Time to go.” Eli’s eyes were hard, and his voice was soft and dark. He was so pissed at me.
I cleared my throat and looked away from him. “Uh, I think I’m gonna stay with Kris—”
“Truck, Paisley.”
Crap. Kristen and I exchanged a glance as I grabbed my purse and avoided looking at the livid girl still standing there. From her speech that showed how much her bleaching had lowered her IQ, I had no doubt she was still trying to figure out what all this meant.
Following Eli out to his truck, I worried my bottom lip the closer we got without him ever saying a word. Usually if a girl suggested he should leave me behind, and we left immediately after, Eli couldn’t shut up about the girl’s boldness. For him to not say a word only solidified the fact that he was mad about the way I’d responded to her.