Page 76 of If It's You

Except she needed to convince him.

“He was Mack’s best friend.” She tried again.

“Oh,” was all he said.

“You’re difficult, you know that?”

“Am not,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m sure your girlfriend would agree with me.” Maizie hadn’t meant to say that, but now that it was out in the open, she was more than a little curious.

His back stiffened, and his words were forced. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Well, if you did, she would agree with me.”

Christian just shook his head with a chuckle. It was kind of nice not being at each other’s throats. But she missed the exhilaration that came with besting him.

Two hours, and a shower later, Maizie received a text from Rob.

Rob: Want to hang?Christian’s comment floated through the back of her mind. But he was wrong. Rob wasn’t trying to be her boyfriend. He was her friend. Plain and simple.

Maizie: Sure.

Rob: Be there in thirty.

* * *

Christian wasout for a jog when he saw Rob escorting Maizie into the sporty black rich-kid truck. She was so oblivious. Rob might have been Mack’s best friend, but he was trying to be more than Maizie’s friend now. Christian recognized the way Rob looked at Maizie. It was the same way he saw her. Which was. . . nothing like a friend.

He shook his head and ran faster. She was off-limits for so many reasons.

He pushed his legs hard for the next two miles and was sweating long before he made it back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. He sank to the floor in an exhausted stretch. He shouldn’t have been running like that after pulling his hamstring the other day. But he preferred working the sore muscle until it was no longer sore to resting it.

An incoming text vibrated his phone. Caroline. Again. She had texted him multiple times in the last few days, and he had let them all go unanswered.

Caroline: Can we please talk?

Christian’s jaw clenched. Why? So she could break his heart again? An incoming call from her made him jump, and he accidentally swiped up.

“Christian?” Caroline’s smooth voice drifted through the speaker. He should push the end button, but that would be rude.

“Hi,” he said bluntly.

“I’m sorry about the way I ended things.” She dove right in. Caroline had never been one for small talk. “Can I come see you?”

“I’m not home,” Christian said, gripping his phone harder than necessary.

“Oh. Where are you?”

“With Jayce.” He offered her no more explanation.

“Anyway, look. I hate the way I treated you. Is there any way we can still be friends?”

Friends with the girl that cheated on him? Nope. But if it got her off the phone faster, then he could agree to it.

“Sure.”

“You are the best, Christian. You really are.”