Page 18 of One Day

“Nope,” I say, pushing to my feet and waking Fish in the process, who shoots me an irritated look before curling back up. “I’m going for a drive.”

“Avoiding your problems won’t make them go away!” she calls after me, and I know this is the cowardly way out. Flynn is good at forcing me to confront my own problems. It’s what is going to make her a great divorce lawyer, but right now, I’m not interested in confronting anything. I’m all thought out, so I’m running in the opposite direction.

Placing my hands over my ears, I call back, “I can’t hear you!”

“Real mature!”

I shoot her a smile over my shoulder, grab my keys, and head into the hall. I don’t know where I plan to go. It’d probably be smart of me to turn around, go back to my room, and call my mom to explain I wouldn’t be interning with Mr. Richards and apologize for leading her to believe I would. Up until now, I have been doing a great job of keeping plausible deniability. I hadn’t outright agreed to anything, but that’s long gone now.

Sonya has been circling my brain all day, pressing into every corner and taking up permanent residency. It’s likely why I find myself parked outside her house. I’ve turned our conversation over so many times, it’s practically tattooed on my skin.

I shouldn’t have said no. I knew the second she put it on the table that I had made the wrong decision by turning her down. It would be a whole lot easier if it weren’t. Sonya may be my friend, but she’s also a temptation.

One I haven’t allowed myself to entertain because of a boundary she set, but she’s taken it away now. She put the ball in my court, and I panicked. I said no out of fear of what it might do to our friendship, but maybe there’s nothing for me to worry about.

We’ve always toed the line of what a normal friendship is. It’s why her friends tease her about it, and I certainly can’t deny it. There’s always been something there. I felt it the first time I laid eyes on her, but I shoved it down. I made my peace with it, and now it’s bubbling up to the surface. I want to be what she wants, but the fear of this failing us is holding me tightly in place.

She said I’m stuck with her, and I wish it were as simple as believing her.

I want to believe her. I just don’t know how to.

CHAPTER NINE

SONYA

“Just ask, Bekah,” I say when I feel her staring from the edge of my bed. After practically threatening my friends to erase the Walker confession from their brains, I moved upstairs to start brainstorming my app. At least, that was my plan until Bekah made herself at home in my bed and started staring at me.

“I know you told us to forget about it, but I can’t,” she says, nudging the folded comforter at the top of my bed with her foot. “I need the details.”

“There are no details. I asked, and he said no. Now I’m brainstorming for my app design,” I say, gesturing to the laptop in front of me and taking in her relaxed form. Her hands rest on the mattress behind her, facing the head of the bed next to me. “There’s nothing more to it.”

She falls back into my bed with a small groan at my refusal to give her anything else. A moment of silence filters the space between us before she props herself up, her long, nearly black hair spilling down her arm as she rests her cheek against her hand. The hard edges of her jaw softened by the slight upturn of her nose and pillowy lips. It makes her look cute and innocent, but Bekah is anything but. She has a bite to her, especially to protect the people she loves.

And on the rare moments when she lets her walls down, the vulnerability she doesn’t want to show anyone slips out. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, trying to look unaffected as she bites her nail, but the question is quiet. Almost like she doesn’t really want to know.

“I was going to,” I say, shutting my laptop to give her my full attention. “It just…I guess I got a little embarrassed. I told Dylan in the heat of the moment after I got home, but things have kind of settled, and I don’t know, it wasn’t something I just wanted to blurt out. He had every right to say no, I just—”

“Weren’t expecting him to?” she asks.

I lift my shoulders up to my ears and let them fall, the day settling over me. “Maybe? I was at least expecting him to think about it a bit, but he just said no. There wasn’t any hesitation, and in the moment, I wanted to play it cool and be unaffected, but it hurt. And maybe it shouldn’t have. I put him in a weird spot, and I didn’t want him to feel bad because it’s Walker. He would have taken it back if I indicated I felt any differently, and he’s allowed to say no, you know?”

She nods her head. “You’re also allowed to be bummed about it.”

Her words bring an instant comfort to my chest, giving me permission to feel all my feelings. It puts me at ease, something I didn’t even realize I needed until she said it. “I know.”

“So…do you still want to do the casual sex thing? If so, we need a game plan.”

I laugh when she grins at me, eager to be a part of the plan now. “I don’t know, Beks. I don’t think I’m exactly in any shape to be having casual sex. Who would I even go to? I don’t think I can do the whole stranger thing. I want to be comfortable with the person.”

Her grin widens as she sits up. “We know plenty of guys, Sunny. All of them will happily be begging at your feet,” she says, pointing in the general direction of Dylan’s house. “For example, walking sex on a stick next door.”

This time, it’s my turn to grin. “Fitz?”

She makes a face as if his name physically wounds her. “I would rather die.”

Chewing my bottom lip, I play with the idea. Dylan is off the table, and while Bekah hasn’t expressed a single interest in Fitz, the way his eyes always seem to find her tells me that’s not a two-way street, taking him off the table, too. That only leaves their other roommate, the gentle and sturdy left-wing who tends to keep to himself.

She lands on it at the very same second as me, nodding her head as we say, “Campbell.”

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