by Lexi Ryan
“Yes . . .”
“It happened the year before that too. He’d warned me it was just a fling, and I thought I was okay with that, but then I saw him with this other woman later and . . .”
“That was the day you painted your room that ugly beige,” she says. Leave it to Hanna to know that. No one knows me better.
I draw in a ragged breath. More tears are coming. I can feel them. “I am such an embarrassing cliché, but I really wanted to be the one who changed him. Like in the movies where the girl’s hoo-ha is so spectacular, the player guy is blind to all other hoo-has after one taste of hers. I wanted to be the one with the magical hoo-ha.” Shit. I’m crying again. Hard.
“You’re not a cliché. Nate promised me nothing more than sex too, and I fell in love with him. You’re not the first woman to think she can handle it and find herself falling for the guy anyway.”
“It was my fault.” I bring another bite of cookie dough to my lips then drop it when my stomach heaves in protest. “The way things were after that first time. I insisted I only wanted sex as much as he only wanted sex. So it became this joke between us. He’d tease me and flirt, thinking he was playing by my rules, but the whole time I was dying a little inside.”
“Liz, you should have told me.” She strokes my hair. “We’re supposed to talk about this stuff.”
“When I started talking to River, it was nothing, but then I started thinking he might be Sam and things escalated. Now I just feel . . .” I bite down on my lip, but the tears come anyway. “I feel like a fool who wanted something so much she was hellbent on seeing it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sam
Della is the most beautiful mother in the world. I’ve never seen her happier than she looks with her new baby in her arms. The little bundle is wrapped in a blue-and-pink striped blanket, and happiness radiates off everyone in the room. Connor stands beside her, beaming at their new daughter, and something unrecognizable twists inside my gut.
Envy.
Jesus. I never thought I’d feel that, not about kids. I’m not supposed to feel it. I’ve never been anxious to get married or settle down, and I’m sure as hell not ready for kids. But something about seeing Della hold that baby makes some primal part of me respond.
“Hello,” I say to announce my presence. Everyone’s so entranced by the baby that I could probably stand here for hours before they noticed.
Connor looks up first. “Sam! Thanks for coming!”
I cross the room and shake my brother-in-law’s hand. “Congratulations. She’s beautiful.”
“Her name is Avery,” Della says. “After Grandma.”
Connor hands the baby to me, and I cradle her in my arms. The baby blinks and then seems to lock her eyes on mine. I don’t know if she can make out my face or not, but it feels like she can. Like she sees me and recognizes me.
“You’re a natural.”
I turn and shake my head at my mom, who apparently entered the room while I was caught under Avery’s spell. “A natural uncle,” I say. “I get to spoil her rotten and send her home.”
Mom looks to Della. “When is he going to find himself a wife and give me more grandbabies?”
“Hey, greedy, how many grandchildren do you need?” I ask.
“I bet Liz Thompson would make grandbabies with him,” Ryann singsongs as she joins us. “I caught them in quite the compromising position this morning.”
“Lizzy Thompson?” Mom says, her face splitting into a grin. “Really?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and feel Della’s scowl burning into me. Apparently she’s already forgotten her request in favor of hating all things connected to Liz. Next to me, Connor shifts awkwardly.
“Lizzy Thompson?” Della says, parroting Mom, minus the happiness. “Really?”
“What?” Leave it to Ryann to pick up on Della’s tone. “What’s wrong with Liz? I think they’re freaking adorable together.”
Della doesn’t reply. She won’t. She swore me to secrecy the day she told me she was pregnant with Connor’s baby and was going to marry him despite what had happened with Liz. Della, Connor, and I are the only people in this room who know the truth. Anyone else would think Liz would be a great match for me.
“Della doesn’t think anyone is good enough for her big brother,” Mom says as she steals Avery from my arms. “But Lizzy is a sweet girl.”
“She’s a slut,” Della says under her breath. Her serene, motherly glow is fading fast.
“Watch it,” I say. “Bitch is not your color, sis.”
Connor winces and flashes me an apologetic smile before turning back to his wife. “Del . . .” He squeezes her hand and then sinks into the chair next to her bed, and whispers something in her ear. Della’s stiff posture relaxes, and she sinks back, but not before flashing me a look that communicates just what she thinks of the woman I spent my night with.
“She has been dating around a lot,” Ryann says, giving me a pointed look. “According to the Tattler, she’s looking for a husband.”
“Oh, I saw that.” Mom beams.
I turn up my palms. “Seriously, Mom? You’re reading the New Hope Tattler now?”
“People link to it on Facebook all the time.” She shrugs, all innocence and poise. “I can’t help it if the previews put part of the article in my newsfeed.”
Ryann looks green. “You read the Tattler?”
A few weeks ago, the Tattler named a bunch of high school girls seen at a college party. Ryann and her best friend, Drew Fisher, were on the list. Ryann already got a piece of my mind about that. I may despise the Tattler, but if knowing her whereabouts might be seen by our mother is going to keep my little sister out of trouble, then I could get behind the trashy website.
Mom cuts her eyes to Ryann. “I see enough.”
“Well, it’s just a bunch of gossip,” Ryann says. “Half of it is lies, anyway.”
Mom smirks. “Mmm-hmm.”
Thankfully, the topic shifts to Della’s labor and delivery as the baby is passed around the room, and before I know it, it’s five in the evening and the nurses are shooing us out the door so the new mother and baby can both rest.
I say my goodbyes and Connor follows me out.
“Can we talk for a minute?” he asks when we’re alone in the hall.
I stop walking and shove my hands into my pockets. Connor used to be one of my best friends. We met in college, and for a couple of years I shared a house with him and William Bailey and a couple of other guys. My friendship with Connor changed when he started dating my sister. It ended when he broke my sister’s heart. Now he’s no longer my friend. He’s my brother-in-law, and I accept that—Della’s life, Della’s choices—but that doesn’t mean I have to like the guy. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Was Ryann telling the truth? You spent last night with . . . Liz?” He doesn’t look angry, but the way he says her name sounds a little pained.
“That’s not really your business, Connor.”
“I know but . . .” He props his hands on his hips and looks at the ceiling. “I’m thinking about your sister,” he finally says with a sigh. “You know if I could go back and change what happened, I would. But I can’t do that, and I don’t want you doing anything that’s going to rub the past in Della’s face.”
My whole body has gone rigid. “Like what?”
“I know you and Liz . . . hook up sometimes.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m just hoping she’s not the one you’re thinking of dating throughout this campaign. I don’t think she’s the right choice.”
It doesn’t matter that I’d come to the same conclusion on my drive here. My thoughts and emotions are too tangled where Liz is concerned, and twelve months of dating isn’t going to improve that situation. But anger surges through me the second Connor vocalizes the very thing I was thinking. Slowly, I count backward from five before saying, “I don’t remember asking you.”
“Governor Guy will be in town tom
orrow. Sabrina’s already here. There is a good choice. Hell, almost anyone would be a better choice than Liz.”
My whole body tenses. “My sister just gave birth to your child, and you’re seriously going to stand there and be jealous of my relationship with Liz?”
“Lower your voice,” he says.
“Stay out of my business,” I hiss. “She isn’t yours, Connor, and I’ll date her if I want to.”
“You’ll fuck her and you’ll break her heart,” he mutters.
I take a step closer. I look down on most guys, but Connor’s my height and we’re eye to eye. “Say that again.”
He exhales slowly. “Just . . . whatever. But don’t bring her home. That wouldn’t be fair to Della.”
When angry words fill my mouth, I keep my jaw locked shut so they can’t escape. I’ve said my piece to him more than once. Della made her choice. Time to let go and move on. The thing is, when it comes to Liz, I’ve always found letting go to be harder than it should be.
“Thank you for thinking of my sister,” I finally say. “But just because you fucked a girl once doesn’t mean you get to decide if I bring her home.”
* * *
Liz
At home, I face my closed laptop as if I’m afraid it might attack me.
I took the app off my phone, but I know the Something Real messenger client is going to load the minute I start up my computer, and I’m going to be faced with a deluge of messages from him.
Or maybe I won’t. Maybe he hasn’t sent me a single thing since he apologized for bailing on me last night.
My stomach flips and nausea rolls over me. How long have I been convinced that it was Sam I was talking to? I kept telling myself that it was, but now that I’m forced to accept that it wasn’t Sam, I feel . . . violated.
That’s not fair. River never claimed to be Sam. That’s on me. And yet now that I know, I wish I gave heed to all those moments we’d been chatting and I’d grown cold, all the times I’d get that off feeling in my gut. Any time I found myself questioning who my anonymous friend was, I’d remind myself of all the reasons I thought he was Sam. River was looking for an investment; Sam does investment banking. River likes to talk dirty; Sam likes to talk dirty. River has a little brother; Sam has a little brother. River wants to tie me up; Sam likes to tie me up.
But maybe that’s a more common fantasy than I realize. And the other things? A background in finance, a little brother? What an idiot am I? There have to be thousands of guys who fit that description.
Holding my breath, I open my laptop and turn it on. As it does with every startup, the messenger client loads and my missed messages fill my screen.
Riverrat69: I don’t blame you for being pissed. The ball’s in your court now, just know I would have rather been with you last night.
I press my hands to my hot cheeks. How can I tell River what has me so upset? How can I tell Sam?
I shake my head. I can’t. Telling Sam would be suicide. There’s nothing between us and no reason I should hurt him by admitting I went to the cabin to meet someone else.
“But I only went because I thought that someone else was him,” I whisper. God, what a convoluted mess I’ve created.
I place my hands on the keyboard to reply to River. But instead of replying, I scroll back through our message history, to a month ago around the time when things started crossing the friendship line.
Riverrat69: Tell me what turns you on.
Tink24: Kissing. Secret meetings in dark corners. Strong men who pursue what they want but aren’t too proud to ask for permission before taking it. What about you?
Riverrat69: Blondes, beautiful women in short skirts, sassy-mouthed vixens.
Tink24: Oh, so I turn you on?
Riverrat69: Yes. You do. But you already knew that.
Tink24: I hoped. Anything else?
Riverrat69: So much. The curve of a woman’s ass. Hearing her scream my name as I drive into her. The way she stops breathing just before she comes. Your turn.
Tink24: This conversation turns me on. And if the moment is right and I feel safe . . . being tied up.
Riverrat69: I would love to tie you up. I’ve fantasized about it more than once.
It was after that conversation that I’d begun to convince myself Sam was the one I was talking to. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how that all played out. I remembered it as him bringing up bondage first. But it had been me. And wouldn’t most guys play along if a woman said she’d like to be tied up?
The doorbell rings, and I jump.
After closing my laptop, I hurry toward the door and look out the window. Hanna, Nix, Cally, and Maggie are standing on my porch, their arms loaded with grocery bags.
I open the door and my throat goes thick with tears. I am so grateful for my friends. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Cheering you up,” Hanna says, pushing past me.
Cally follows her to the kitchen and chimes in with, “Pretending to be something more than a diaper-changing milk machine for a few minutes.”
Maggie wraps me in a hug. “Hanna said we needed a girls’ night. So here we are.”
“Yeah, here we are,” Nix says with a grin.
My smile wobbles. “You guys are the best.”
“We know,” the girls say in unison.
I follow them to my kitchen, where Hanna is producing the ingredients for chocolate martinis. When she was going through everything with Nate and Max last year, this was how we cheered her up. Since Cally and Hanna both have babies at home now, martini nights are a rare occurrence. “It means a lot to me that you guys came,” I say as we gather in the kitchen. “Now give me vodka.”
Hanna pours dark brown liquid from the martini shaker into a glass then thrusts it in my hand. She makes more for the other girls as I drink.
“So I’ve decided this is the creepiest thing ever,” Nix says after draining half of her martini. “You need to tell Sam about this Riverrat guy so you can get to the bottom of this.”
Cally shivers. “Someone was meeting at you at their cabin. Nix is right. That’s just creepy.”
I can’t disagree. The whole thing is just too coincidental and weird. I might think that it was some big scheme to trick me, and Sam was in on it, but that doesn’t make sense. What would he get out of that?
“I don’t want to tell Sam,” I say. “It would only hurt him, and there’s no reason to tell him when nothing is going to happen between us.”
“You don’t know that,” Hanna says. “I still believe he really likes you.” When I give her a look, she says, “Likes you for more than sex.”
“To be fair,” Maggie says, “whether or not you have a future with Sam, you need to figure out who this guy is.”
“He still wants to meet me,” I say. “I could agree to that.”
Hanna shakes her head. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. Why can’t he tell you who he is then you can meet?”
“He doesn’t know who I am either,” I say. “God, I’m glad I accidentally sent that picture of me to Sam through text when I meant to send it to River through Something Real Chat.”
Nix frowns at me. “What are you talking about? You can’t send pictures through Something Real.”
“Sure you can,” I say. “I sent River pictures before.”
“You did?” the girls screech in unison.
“Not of me, exactly,” I say. “I was only bending the rules, not breaking them. I’d send pictures of tiny parts of me. My hip, my toes . . .” My cheeks heat. “You know . . .”
Nix folds her arms. “That’s so weird. There’s no way to send pictures from my account.”
We all turn to her. “You have an account with Something Real?” I ask.
She looks away. “You made it sound pretty cool, so I thought it was worth a try. But trust me, there’s no picture sending.” She pulls her phone from her pocket and messes with it for a minute before showing it to me.
She has the chat applica
tion pulled up and, sure enough, there’s no option to send pictures.
“I guess I thought it was pretty trusting of them to let us have that when we were supposed to be anonymous,” I admit. “But it’s in beta testing, so maybe it’s just a glitch.”
“Back to River not knowing who you are,” Maggie says. “Why does that matter?”
I shrug. “I could end it. I could just delete my account and the program and never talk to him again. It’s gotta be someone who lives in the area, so it’s better that we don’t know each other, right?”
“But you liked him,” Hanna says. “That’s gotta mean something. Why not find out who he is and then see if you can make it work?”
Maggie shakes her head. “But that’s gonna be all sorts of complicated if it’s someone connected to the Bradshaws.”
“Or if it’s one of the actual Bradshaws,” Nix says. “It is their family cabin.”
“It’s the Bradshaw family cabin,” I repeat, but I’m starting to get hysterical again and it comes out in a squeak. “Sam even told me last night that Connor uses it a lot to give Della space when she’s in her moods. Connor.” I lift my hand to my mouth. I feel sick again. “Oh my God.”
“Liz?” Hanna says. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I draw in a ragged breath, but it’s hard. My lungs are too horrified to accept air. “What if I’ve been having this online relationship with Connor?” I shake my head. “No. He wouldn’t. He’s married now, and regardless of what you guys think about what happened last summer, he’s a really good guy.”
The girls all exchange a look, then study their nails, the counter, their drinks, anything but my face.
Cally’s the first to speak. “Did River say why he didn’t show up last night, Liz?”
“He said he had a family matter come up and he couldn’t get away.” I shake my head. “Connor’s a good guy. I’m a bitch for even thinking for a second it could be him. It’s not. He wouldn’t do that.”
