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I shook my head at the robotic voice. “No! I’ve been too stupid already, chasing after a man who clearly doesn’t want me!” When a truck drove by on the dirt road, I realized how crazy I must look, just talking to myself in the middle of the country.

So I cranked up the radio, letting the music drown out my thoughts until I got to Della’s house. I let myself in the front door, sitting on her couch with the TV on. She looked gorge in ripped jeans, ankle boots and a flowy, lacy tank. Her curls were loose and voluminous, dancing around her bare, freckled shoulders.

“I’m loving the dress,” she said when she saw me.

I did a spin as I walked to where she sat on the couch. “Maya picked it out.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “I bet Fletcher’s going crazy with that image of you in his mind.”

“Apparently... He tried to stop me from coming out tonight.”

Her jaw dropped. “No freaking way.”

I nodded. “I told him I needed to move on, and he was all ‘What if I don’t want you to?’”

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s too late and left!” I leaned back on her couch and covering my face with my hands. “We both know I would have just held on to what he was saying and never moved on. He showed me what he wants, right?”

Della patted my leg. “Fletcher seems like a nice guy, and I adore Maya, but it’s not okay for him to string you along. He needs to be in or out.” She got a salacious grin on her face. “Maybe both, multiple times, in the span of half an hour.”

I laughed out loud. “I need to be more drunk for jokes like that.”

A knock sounded on the door, and Della called, “Come in!”

Henrietta walked into the house wearing a cute cotton dress and sneakers. “My girls!”

We gushed over her for a minute, and then I filled her in on Fletcher drama while Della got us shots to pregame.

“Make Liv’s a double,” Henrietta said.

Della grinned. “Already on it.”

I shook my head at them, taking the plastic cup with the Woody’s Diner logo on it while they both had shot glasses.

Henrietta held up her shot. “To Liv moving on tonight.”

“To moving on,” Della echoed.

I drank to it, even if it tasted bitter.

38

Fletcher

Maya and Graham were asleep in her room, but I sat up in my bed, back against the headboard, trying to read a book. Trying to watch TV. Trying to do anything that would get my mind off Liv.

And failing miserably.

I picked up my phone, looking at the last text I sent her, and seeing no reply.

She was right. I’d been a jackass, scared of my own feelings and taking it out on her. But how could I fix it if we didn’t talk it out or make a plan?

A picture slid over the screen, and I squinted to make it out. There was a part of Liv’s shiny dress. Was the photo taken by accident?

Then another message slid over the screen.

Liv: Do you see that? It’s my ass. You can kiss it.