Page 38 of Falling for my Best Friend

E L E V E N

- Lucy -

I hated to see him hurting, and I could tell he was really worried about her. To be honest, it kind of made me sick all things considered.

I mean, here he was, obsessing over ways he might be able to help her, and she was off fucking some other guy who didn’t give a shit about her.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely fair. Maybe she knew Brad. Maybe they were both volunteering at the nursing home together and decided to grab lunch.

Or maybe that was horseshit.

I mean, Chelsea barely ate so lunch for her was more a social thing than a biological necessity.

And while I was no expert on Brad- though I could probably identify his decapitated body at a crime scene- I hadn’t gotten the impression that he was the kind of guy that went out of his way to spend a lot of time with lonely seniors.

After all, surely that’s the kind of thing you would mention if you were trying to bang a chick. It would be the perfect anecdote for putting yourself forward as a thoughtful and sensitive guy, the kind of guy it was safe to fuck on a first date.

But there had been no mention of anything even remotely altruistic over our lunch. Plus, that was Brad’s go to Tinder hot spot because he had access to all the private massage rooms in the hotel spa… which were surprisingly spacious.

Still, even though I never thought Chelsea was good enough for Aiden, I didn’t want her to be cheating on him. Not just because it made me sick to think about when I was supposed to be psyching myself up for ice cream, but because if she was carelessly hurting him, I’d have to kill her.

Then she’d never have to count another calorie again.

But I wasn’t going to say anything to him about it now when we were having a nice time. I didn’t want bad news interfering with our glorious ice cream parlor hounding tradition.

Besides, what if I was wrong? That would be disastrous. It might jeopardize his trust in me. Or worse, he might take her side and push me away. Then we’d both be broken hearted.

I mean, he was my best friend in the whole world. The only thing I could imagine that would be more horrible than someone hurting him was if someone came between us.

No. I couldn’t risk our friendship by gossiping about Chelsea unless I knew for sure that she was being unfaithful. After all, Fiona and I left before she and Brad did. Maybe they didn’t cross the street and go into the hotel. Maybe I was just jumping to unfair conclusions because of my own prejudices, like the fact that I didn’t trust people who thought ice cream was evil.

I sighed. Either way, I was fucked.

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Aiden asked, looking at the menu hanging high on the opposite wall. “What are you going to go for?”

“I think I’m going to get the cake batter ice cream in a sprinkle covered waffle cup.”

“Toppings?” he asked.

“No, I don’t want anything to interfere with my judgment of the ice cream itself on this initial assessment.”

“A wise choice.”

“You?”

“I’m going to go with the double chocolate swirl in a chocolate dipped waffle cone.”

“Toppings?”

“Peanut butter cup chunks,” he said. “For extra protein.”

I laughed. “Of course.”

“Do you ever worry that someday we’ll be collecting cavities like we collect ice cream places now?”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” I said. “What we’ll do is skip the cavity stage entirely and go straight to being gummy and toothless. After all, you don’t need teeth to enjoy ice cream.”

“But what about the peanut butter cups,” he said, sticking out his bottom lip.

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