Chapter 4
EVIE
It shouldn’t feel this good.
With everything that’s going on in my life right now—most of which has transpired in the last hour—the last thing I should be doing is curling up against my on-again-off-again ex-best friend. But here I am.
And it feels good.
He’s warm. He’s sturdy. And right now, he’s just quiet.
We’re just sitting in silence on this big brown couch that feels like it’s fresh off the showroom floor, and I wonder how many times someone has sat on it.
There are no photos on the walls, no plants, no nothing that insinuates signs of life.
Some random paintings hang on the walls but nothing that feels like Keaton.
But I decide not to ask tonight.
I decide to just let this go on as long as it can.
I curl up tighter against him as he flicks through the channels. Then I see him scroll back up to Three’s Company, and I turn my chin up to him.
“No way,” I say with a shy smile. He smirks.
“It’s always on this time of night,” he says.
“It is?” I ask, surprised that he knows this.
“Yep,” he says. “I watch it almost every night.”
“You do?” I ask. He smiles.
“Yeah. It reminds me of my best friend.”
I swallow as I stare up at him.
His best friend.
I sit up and turn toward him, crossing my legs underneath me and facing him.
“What made you come tonight?” I ask him.
“What do you mean? You sent me your location.”
“I know,” I say. “But I…” my voice trails off. He turns to me and puts his hand on top of
mine.
“Eve, if I sent you my location, what would you have done?”
I think for a moment. I would be anxious. I would overthink it a million times. But I know what I would do.
“I would come,” I say. He nods.
“Exactly,” he says.
“But even after…” my voice trails off again. I’m not really sure what I need him to say. I just want to know why, after the way we left everything, he still came. He brought me back here. He’s still sitting with me now.
“Even after,” he says. His eyes drop down to our now intertwined fingers for a moment. “Eve, I told you years ago that you will always have me. Always. And I meant it. Even when you had him, you had me. Have me.”
I force myself to look up at him, and I can feel the tears burning in the backs of my eyes. What could I have done to deserve those words?
We sit in silence for a minute before he pushes to his feet.
“I’ll grab you a towel. The guest room is all yours,” he says quietly. But as he turns to go, I reach up and grab his sleeve. He looks down at me, his eyebrows knit together.
“I, uh…I don’t…” I try to say. “I don’t…”
I don’t know how to tell my maybe-not-ex-best friend that I don’t want to sleep by myself.
Because after everything he just did for me, the last thing I should be doing is asking him for something—particularly something that sends a million other confusing mixed signals.
And my signals are so crossed I don’t even know what I’m sending out.
He doesn’t say anything. He just pats my hand and walks away, headed down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
Fuck. I wish I wasn’t such a fucking lunatic sometimes. After more than a decade, he answered my vague S.O.S., he drove across town, rescued me from my own house and husband, and gave me shelter and a literal shoulder to lean on. And now I want him to…what? Read me a bedtime story? Cuddle?
He could have a girlfriend for all I know. I’ve been a tad preoccupied with my own shit. I have no idea—
Just as I’m about to spiral off into a ruthless game of “what-if,” he returns from the dark hallway.
He has a large comforter in his hand and two pillows.
He throws one down on one end of the couch and the other on the opposite end.
He opens the blanket and spreads it out over me and the other end of the couch, and then he sits down on the other end and pulls it over himself.
He’s sleeping out here with me.
He won’t even suggest a bed—for a number of very important reasons.
But he knows I don’t want to be alone.
So we’re sharing the couch.
He’s not leaving.
I settle down into my nook of the couch, laying my head on the ultra-comfy foam pillow he brought out for me. The pillowcase smells like fresh linen, and as I breathe it in, I realize how exhausted I am.
I start to let myself get sleepy when thoughts of Tanner start to descend.
The look in his eyes when he asked me about Keaton.
The way he blocked the doorways to control where I could move in the house.
The hole he punched in the drywall.
The glass bowl we got as a wedding gift, shattered on the floor.
The grip he had on my wrist.
I don’t even realize that my leg is jumping with anxiety until Keaton slides his hand over my thigh, gripping it lightly. It sends a shock through my body, both a zap to reality and a jolt of energy that goes right to my core.
“I’m right here, Eve,” he whispers in the dark. I nod, sliding my hand down to his. Our fingers lock, and my brain starts to quiet.
I don’t know what tomorrow brings. But I remember what he said earlier.
Not tonight.
Tomorrow.