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“He finds grocery stores fun. He never was able to go when we worked under his dad.”
“That’s so cute.”
We sat on her couch and ordered pizza. Once that was settled, she leaned toward me. “So, how was the honeymoon?”
Memories of how it ended flashed through my mind, but I shook them off. “Levi tried to kill me by dragging me on this bridge high up between the mountains.”
“Do you have pictures?” I pulled out my phone, showing her everything Levi had sent me. “Wow. A lot of these are of you.”
“He’s good at pretending.”
“Better than Sebastian was,” she said. “You look happy in these. And somehow even better at pretending. Why?”
“It all started when we ... kinda slept together.”
“What?Why wouldn’t you open this conversation with that?”
“Because I caught him talking to someone else later in the day. It may have been innocent, but he hid it.”
“Okay,” Lily said, shaking her head. “So you’ve kissed and slept together.”
“The kiss was practice, but the other stuff ... Can I blame it on the mountains?”
“I don’t think they’re responsible.”
“Then it was a slip of my judgment. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I think I forgot this is all revenge.”
“And obviously he did too.”
“Maybe he didn’t. He could have just slept with me for revenge purposes.”
“That would be gross onmanylevels.”
“It would be, but who knows? He’s hurt me before, and I let him do it again.”
She stared at me, and I wondered if she was working out how to tell me how much of an idiot I was.
I wouldn’t blame her if she did.
As I said it out loud, I could see that I was heading for one hell of a heartbreak. As much as I told myself I wasn’t going to let it happen, I also knew that I liked him. I’d liked him since that first day when he seemed to choose me over Calvin. And now all of the gifts and appreciation were making it worse, and all I could do was be along for the ride.
But this was Lily, and above all else, Lily was so kind.
“Okay, so you’re making some choices.”
“I know they’re not the best ones. And I know I’ll only get myself hurt in the end.”
“Yeah, kinda. Unless you have things wrong about Levi.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“I thought I knew everything about Sebastian, and look at where that got me. We wasted four years of our lives on assumptions we made about each other.”
“Yes, but I know Levi is using me for revenge. And maybe my mouth? He seemed to enjoy the blowjob.”
Lily’s eyes went wide and she was looking at the door. I turned, and my face flamed to see Sebastian had just walked in.
“What the hell did I just walk into?” he asked.