Page 29 of I Choose You

He chuckles.

I look over before setting my half-eaten donut back into the box. “What?”

“Nothing. Just interesting to hear your thought process.”

My cheeks warm at his words. We sit in silence after that, him biting at another donut as I stare out at our view. It’s dark, so I can’t make much out, but it’s enough at this moment. The blueberry cake is the last donut left, and it sits untouched in the cardboard box beside Owen after a while, our bellies full of alcohol, sugar, and dough. It’s oddly pleasing and a smidge disgusting how many donuts we’ve inhaled. Still, I feel lucky to have run into him tonight.

“What should I do?” I ask after time passes.

He glances over at me, hands behind him, leaning into the grass. “What do you think you should do?”

My mind hurts thinking about it. I’ve volleyed back and forth about it for too long, wondering what the hell is wrong with me for catching a crush on my best friend weeks before he’s supposed to move. “I don’t know.”

“Okay…what do you know?”

“I know I care about him deeply. I can’t figure out why I suddenly have this silly fondness where he’s concerned, but I know my heart won’t survive the drop if I’m open about it, and he feels differently. It’s a slippery slope, Owen.”

He nods. “That’s fair. My only tried-and-true advice is this—follow your gut. It’ll lead you to where you’re supposed to be. It might not make sense right now, but it will in the grand scheme of things.”

I tip my head back and blow out a breath. I’m all talked out. Owen is remarkable and patient, not at all annoyed that we’ve talked about me this entire time. He should be back with his friends, celebrating their huge milestone. He didn’t have to sit and listen to me go on and on, but I appreciate it more than ever. I have more clarity now than I did before and another friend.

Fifteen minutes pass before we call an Uber. Owen drops me off at my place. He walks me to the door, thanks me for a nice night, then walks back to the car after giving me his number. I watch as the car makes it down our neighborhood road before I unlock the front door. I fall into bed the second I reach my room, not caring about washing the night off me when I do.

Ugh.

I can’t continue to swoon over my best friend.

What the heck am I going to do?

13

Mason

It’s Saturday, and while I’d normally be in the office in the morning, I told Richard I couldn’t make it in. The extra effort I put in on my remaining projects over the last two weeks affords me a little extra time out of the office to pack. There’s not much more I need to gather, but I do need to get it done.

I head out to the kitchen and eat breakfast, waiting unreasonably long to see if anyone will join me, but the verdict is out—no one is around. Then, I hear murmuring coming from the hallway and realize it must be Mackenzie because Luke’s car is gone. Straightaway, I head to knock on her bedroom door. She yells from the other side, and I poke my head in, catching the flickering of her TV.

“Are you hermiting?” I question, noticing she’s under her comforter and still in her pajamas.

Hermiting, defined as the act of lying in bed for the entire day after a crazy week of work or a night out that might have involved too much alcohol. It’s a phrase we coined after Luke spent half of his junior year of college partying. It didn’t take him long to realize that it wasn’t worth the aches and pains that came the following day.

A smile, one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, appears on her face. “What if I am? Want to join me?”

Does she actually think I’ll say no?

I shuffle around the door and close it. I’m in sweatpants and a t-shirt. It’s what I rolled out of bed in, and it’s perfect for rolling right back in. I’m quick to catch the screen on her phone when I sprawl across the comforter and lean in her direction.

“What’s this?” My body does this funny thing where it plunges into a dark, jealous valley.

She’s quick to hit the rectangular button on the side of her phone to turn off the screen and shove it under the heavy blanket on her far side. “Nothing.”

Unfortunately for her, I saw Fish4U written out across the top of the web page or app she was on. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the name, and it takes a second to place it, then I remember seeing commercials for the dating app on the television. They have billboards throughout the city as well. Hell, now that I think about it, there are posters for it in the bathrooms at work.

“Kenzie Jones is on a dating app?” It comes out teasingly, but truthfully, I’m falling into a vat of jealousy as each second ticks by. The idea of Mackenzie meeting a random dude through an app specifically made for hook-ups makes my skin crawl. It…rubs me the wrong way.

She sticks with denial. “Nope. I’m definitely not on a dating site.”

My brows push up, creating lines on my forehead. I want to reach out and touch her rosy cheeks. Tell her she shouldn’t be on one of those ridiculous websites when I’m sitting right here. But I can’t. I would rather have her as my friend than nothing at all. “It definitely looked like it.”

---