Josh
He wandered around for a bit, then heard Britney’s voice in the kitchen. She wasn’t shouting or anything, but he knew before he got there she and Baloo were having a fight. Those two bickered all the time, but whatever this one was about looked serious.
“Hey.” He gave the doorframe of the kitchen a knock.
The pair of them whipped around so fast Baloo accidentally sent a plate of spaghetti flying. A huge blob of sauce landed on Brit’s dress.
“Bronson!” she screeched, pushing him away when he tried to rub it off with his sleeve. Britney prided herself on her immaculate appearance, so this was Defcon Level One. “What the—”
“I’m sorry, okay!” Baloo shouted, his shoulder bashing into Josh as he passed. “I’m sorry about everything.”
Josh knew better than to follow him. Not with Britney glaring at him like the stain on her dress was his fault.
Pretty much everything had been his fault since he’d accidentally abandoned her at his birthday party.
The first one. It hadn’t helped that Perry had live streamed him and Teagan doing karaoke at the second party.
“Is your dress going to be okay?”
She threw the sponge she’d been trying to dab the sauce away with in the sink. “It’s going to be a replacement situation.” She beamed a familiar smile at him—cheery, and laced with poison. “You know dresses. They’re kind of like boyfriends.”
“I knew you were still mad about that.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, clearly surprised he had the gall to think she wouldn’t be.
He’d screwed up before with Brit. He’d do it again. But she was right, he owed her an apology. “I’m sorry I ditched you. The after-party wasn’t planned, it just kind of spontaneously happened.”
“Oh, I see.” She tipped her head to the side, nodding like one of those bobblehead things people put on their dashboards.
“The whole crew just ‘spontaneously’ showed up at the boathouse. Every one of them. Even Teagan, who, if I’m not mistaken, should have been serving hors d’oeuvres alongside her mother at your real birthday party.
Maybe she’s why your dad fired her mom right there and then. ”
Josh took a beat. That was a lot to register.
He didn’t know his dad had done that. Teagan hadn’t said a word about it, and things had been good between them ever since he’d heroically saved her life, then bared his soul to her.
Not really A-plus boyfriend behavior, though.
When you looked at it through Britney’s lens.
But she didn’t know the whole picture. No one did. Not even Teagan.
“I’m sorry. Truly. You have every right to be mad. But that whole party-at-the-boathouse thing was genuinely not planned.”
He could practically see the wheels turning in Britney’s head as she stared at him, weighing up the pros and cons of accepting his apology. “What’s going on with you?”
It was a good question. A couple of months ago he thought he knew everything.
Past, present, future. It gave him plenty of free time to mess with other people.
It had not been time well spent. “I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully.
“Sometimes I wonder…” He looked up at her.
“I wonder what would happen if my life just blew up.”
Britney clucked her tongue, as if the idea was too ridiculous to entertain. “Your life isn’t going to blow up.”
It could. It might. “What if it did? Would it be so bad to clear the slate, figure out something new? Forge my own path instead of following the Regis one?”
Britney looked at him like he’d grown another head, then flicked the switch in her brain that turned on her campaign manager mode.
“There’s no need to forge your own path, babe.
” She ran her hand down his arm, threaded her fingers through his.
“Don’t let your grandfather’s curveballs get to you.
It might feel like you’re in competition with Ryder, but there isn’t one.
” She kissed his cheek and gave him a perky smile.
The one that said she’d decided what her future looked like and it wasn’t up to Josh to mess it up.
“You’ve been my boyfriend for over two years when I could have my pick of the crop. Do you know why I picked you?”
Because he was hot and rich?
She booped his nose. “Because I pick winners.”
He managed to keep the smile on his face, but he heard what she was really saying. If he hadn’t been the crown prince of the Regis family, she wouldn’t have been interested. It wasn’t him she’d fallen for, it was all the trappings that came with him.
Amber came rushing in babbling about how hilarious Ryder was for turning Westvale into West-fail.
Josh needed to get out of there. He squeezed Brit’s hand, then untangled his fingers from hers. “I’m going to go get you a drink, okay, babe?”
He’d already lost her attention. If he’d ever had it in the first place.