Page 122 of Bitter Rival

“Live on it. Run it. Drink wine. This time you can do it legally,” he says with a laugh. “I’ll never forget that time we drank that bottle of wine in the stables.”

“I’ll never forget how you threw up all over my sneakers,” Ledger says. “Never could hold your liquor.”

Caiden scowls. “I would have been fine if you two assholes hadn’t made me chug it and then run a lap around the stables.”

“That’s on you for succumbing to peer pressure,” I say with a shake of my head.

Ledger nods in agreement.

“No.” Caiden points at me. “We were playing Truth or Dare. None of us ever chose Truth. What did we even have to hide at twelve?” he says with a snort.

“Remember how Daisy covered for us?” Ledger says with a smile. “She was such a cool kid. Never ratted us out. She always tried to take the blame too.”

Yeah, she did. I forgot about that. Even as a kid, she was so fierce. So fucking loyal. She once told me she would sooner cut off her own arm than tattle on me.

In return, I always tried to be there for her. I remember dragging my friends to the grade school talent show because Daisy was in it and her mom had no interest in attending school functions. So I wanted to make sure someone was rooting for her.

Daisy did a little comedy skit that had us howling.

Shit. She was a funny kid.

“How much time do you have left?” Ledger asks, jolting me back to the present.

“Four days. It’s the final countdown.” I finish the taco in three more bites and take a pull of my beer.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Ledger says.

“We probably won’t see him for another decade or two,” Caiden says.

“Nah. We’ll stay in touch.”

Reconnecting with my old friends has been one of the more positive things that came out of this whole arrangement, so I don’t want to lose contact with them again.

Ironically, all three of my friends will be in Sutton Ridge now that Grayson bought that inn and is currently looking at real estate.

“So what about you and Daisy?” Caiden asks when Ledger moves to the other end of the bar to serve a customer.

“She’ll go back to her life, and I’ll go back to mine.” That was the plan all along but now I’m not sure how I feel about it.

That douchebag will be waiting for her when she returns to New York, so I’ll have to entice her to stay an extra week and fly directly to Madrid from here.

That way, she’ll save herself the hassle of an extra flight and avoid seeing the douchebag.

Two birds, one stone, perfect plan.

“So that’s how you’re gonna play it, huh?” Caiden strokes his jaw. “You’re just gonna pretend you and Daisy aren’t perfect for each other?”

I wouldn’t call us perfect. “That’s a stretch. I’m not sure you could find two people more opposite than me and Daisy.”

“Opposites attract.” Caiden points his beer bottle at me. “You should ask her on a date.”

“A date?” I say it like it’s a foreign word.

“Take her out to dinner. Maybe a movie…”

“We eat dinner together every night. And trust me, no one needs to pay good money to sit through a movie with Daisy. She talks right through it, narrates the whole fucking thing.”

Shit. I’m even going to miss that. I’m going to miss a lot of things about Daisy.

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