Dirty brain, wash your lobes out with soap.
“Want me to ask for you? I’ll be all secret-y and shit when I ask.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say, staying strong, doing my damnedest to refocus my mind. Who cares what he likes in bed?
“Clearly, since you’re already at the stage where you’re telling him how manly you smell,” he says, and I can hear Declan laughing in the background.
I pat the back seat for Delilah. “In you go, girl,” I tell her and the perfect pet leaps inside, then I click her in. “Anyway, thank you again for covering for me this weekend. I appreciate it so much. Did you check The Lazy Hammock insta? The guys are going crazy knowing you and the shortstop will be manning the bar. I bet this will be our biggest weekend ever.”
“And we’re ready. As long as I don’t have to mix drinks.”
“All you have to do is look pretty and serve them. Ergo, be yourself,” I say, heading to the driver’s side and sliding in. “Anyway, I need to head to Hayes Valley, so I should hang up unless you need something.”
“Actually, Declan does. His mom has a cabin in Markleeville, about thirty minutes outside of Tahoe,” Grant says, in the universal I-need-a-favor voice.
I nod, checking my mirrors. “I know Markleeville. Right near the hot springs.”
“And she’s going there with her hubs next weekend. After Thanksgiving. Any chance you can swing by and check on the place before she goes? Deck says it’s supposed to snow next week, so he wants to make sure the pipes won’t burst in the cold. The faucet needs turning on a drip and the cabinets need opening. Any chance you can do that?”
“Piece of cake. Of course we’ll stop. It’s not far from Nisha’s.”
“Should only take twenty minutes,” Grant adds.
“Do I need to swing by and grab a key from you?”
“Nope. Keyless entry. I’ll text you the address and the entry code.”
“Fabulous. Happy to help. Be sure to take pics of you and your man at the bar. I’m dying to see them.”
“And be sure to take pics of . . . wait, no. Don’t send me pics of your weekend. I hope your weekend is not for public viewing.”
“Grant, hun,” I say with a sigh, leveling with my buddy, “I so appreciate the Cupid in you. Truly, I do. But you understand the point of the pact, right?”
“Yes, so you’re not tempted.”
“No, I am tempted. Very tempted. That’s the trouble,” I admit, since I kinda need to get that out. It’s been weighing on me.
“So, you’re into him,” Grant says, matter-of-factly.
“Yes, no, whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
“It kind of does, River. Feelings, shockingly, do matter.”
“We’re not talking about feelings. We’re talking about attraction, but whether I find him attractive is neither here nor there. The pact has a purpose. Like a rubber band on the wrist, and I am snapping it right now,” I say, miming tugging a band. “It’s so I don’t act on temptation. If sex enters the equation, it’ll complicate everything. As sex does,” I say, making my point. “Already, romance and me are like a pair of cows walking a tightrope. It just doesn’t work out, so it’s best to keep friendships separate.”
“I get everything you’re saying. But I wish you could see the two of you flirt. You’d see what I see.”
I dismiss his observations quickly, since there’s no room to consider them. “I flirt with everyone. It’s my nature. Like talking. I am a shameless, chatty flirt.”
“No, you flirt with him more than you do with other people,” he mutters.
Scoff, scoff, and more scoff. “Have you met me? I am not just a social butterfly. I am a social beast and if I don’t have my friends in my life, I will die. Literally die. So, as you can see, this is a life-and-death matter.”
“Dramatic much?” he deadpans.
“Grant,” I say, sighing. He might have a point about the flirting, but that doesn’t change the facts. “I appreciate you wanting to smush us together. But I won’t take the risk.”
He’s quiet for a beat. “All, right. I hear ya, man. I’ll lay off it. You just have fun like you always do.”
“Thank you,” I say, then we hang up, and I drive to Hayes Valley.
He’s not entirely wrong. But there are risks you take and risks you don’t take.
I already took the biggest risk of all with Hayden seven years ago. At the age of twenty-two, I left my family here, my friends, and my job tending bar.
I followed a man to Arizona, thinking it was going to last.
What a fool I was.
Ansel had nothing on the Hayden heartbreak. That was the real deal. The stab-a-serrated-knife-in-my-chest-and-dig-it-around variety of real.
But I started over, made my own way in a new place, leaned on friends like Owen and his support to get me through the dark days. And I promised myself I wouldn’t uproot my life for a guy ever again.