Page 99 of Sugar

Or fifth wheel, in our case.

We were having a blast. I just wished that Easton and I had the kind of relationship where I could invite him to hang out with my friends. But that wasn’t what we were.

Even if we were, the fancy-ass lawyer wouldn’t want to hang in our favorite dive bar with a bunch of college students. Even Chris seemed a little put off, and he was only five years older than us, not fifteen. He was doing his best to hide it for Wren’s sake, which earned him some more points.

Not that he needed them. Wren was an adult who could make her own decisions, and she’d again chosen well. But they were there, nonetheless.

Unlike Easton.

Dammit.

Greer set her tequila and soda down and leaned closer. “You okay?”

I choked down the stupid longing and flashed a smile that was fifty percent forced and one hundred percent drunk. “Yup.” I looked over to share the smile with Wren, but she’d disappeared.

Poof.

Vanished.

“Where’d she go?”

Greer and Josh laughed. I was fine with her doing it, but I side eyed him.

Wren wasn’t the only one who could hold a grudge.

To be fair, Greer had been correct. Josh seemed like a changed man. More attentive and present.

But still a bit of a show-offy tool, though she didn’t seem to mind that.

She gestured to the bar. “They went to get another round.” She smiled. Hers wasn’t forced. It was all-knowing—and also drunk. “You must’ve missed it because you were staring at your phone.”

“Was not,” I lied because I very much had been. I’d been trying to convince my vodka-soaked brain that texting Easton was a bad idea. All the while, I’d also been willing it to vibrate with a message from him. Since I wasn’t about to admit any of that, I changed the subject before my lowered inhibitions did it for me. “Chris is so nice.”

“Yesss,” she drawled on a hushed whisper. “He seems crazy about her, too.”

“Totally. Which is expected, of course. She’s Wren. But he seems ready to hire a skywriter to proclaim his unending devotion.”

“I like it.” She offered her own little side eye to Josh that he missed because he wasn’t paying attention. “He’s not afraid to show his feelings.”

Uh oh.

Maybe Josh is not as changed as we thought…

Like the relationship gods had timed it, Josh chose that moment to push his stool back. “Sorry, babe, work calls.”

Greer didn’t ask for a reason or an excuse. She didn’t even pretend to be disappointed. “Okay.”

“Hopefully this will be quick, and I can come back.”

“Yeah. Hopefully.” The snark in her tone was heavy, but he wasn’t listening to catch it.

He kissed her quickly and tossed me a half-assed wave on his way out the door that unfortunately didn’t hit him.

“If I talk about seeing him again, please slap me silly,” she said.

“Did I have a psychic vision, or did we not already have this exact conversation?”

“We did. And I really thought he’d changed. But then I spent the afternoon with him, and he was back to being glued to his phone. I was already over it, but I knew having him here would help Wren,” she continued, unaware of my guilty conscience skyrocketing thanks to my own cellular preoccupation. “Turns out her and Professor Dreamboat didn’t need the help.”