Page 41 of Unforgettable

THIRTEEN

Amanda

Livingwith a man-child meant being woken up by slamming doors. The morning following my date with Reed, I’d woken to Adam slamming the bathroom door. He then returned to his room and slammed that door.

Luckily, I’d fallen back to sleep for another hour before my phone insistently buzzing on my bedside table pulled me into the world once again.

There were several missed texts: one from Justin, who I hadn’t actually thought about since I watched him walk out of that room with Reed’s date, then another from Reed, one from Josh, and several from Hazel.

Hazel calling me was the reason for the incessant buzzing. Before answering, I chanced a look at the clock on the opposite side of the room and groaned when I saw it wasn’t even eight.

“Hello?” I said in a voice still drenched in sleep.

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up. I keep forgetting that y’all are an hour behind us, and—”

“I told you she wasn’t going to be awake!” I heard Luke shout from somewhere in the background, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“No one asked for your input, husband dearest,” Hazel yelled back before clearing her throat. “Anyway, I’m sorry, but since you are awake, I need a favor.”

I grunted in response as I tried to scrub the sleep from my eyes. Hazel took my grunt as confirmation to continue. “One of my cousins sent a late wedding gift. I’m not sure what the hell it is, but he just told me that someone has to be there to sign for it. Luckily, I would just need someone there between noon and two this afternoon, and I was wondering if you could go to our house and wait for it.”

“Yeah, I guess I can do that. But what the hell did your cousin buy you that requires a signature? Is it alcohol?” I asked, pulling myself from my comfortable bed only because my bladder was screaming for relief.

“I’m not even sure, but he’s one of the cousins that…” Hazel kept talking, but I groaned when I opened my bathroom door, excited to relieve the pressure in my bladder, only to remember that my toilet was broken. It had taken three days for the maintenance guy, CJ, to find the part needed, and after only a few days of sharing a bathroom with my brother, I was already more than over it.

Begrudgingly, I opened my bedroom door and crossed the hall. Without muting the phone or asking Hazel to hold on, I peed as she moved on to topics about their road trip and where they were headed next. The several missed texts from her that morning were apparently photos from their time in the Rocky Mountains.

“But we’ll be back by the end of next week,” she said as I stepped out of the bathroom. I was already thinking about crawling back into bed when Adam intercepted me in the hallway.

“Hey, sis. I’m heading to the gym for my first day, but how was your date last night? I gotta tell you the fact that you’re dating both Reed and Josh is fuckin’ crazy if you ask me.”

I whipped my head in Adam’s direction and proceeded to give him my most withering, scathing “big sister” look I could muster through my shock. His comment was like a bucket of ice water over my tired mind and body.

“How…?” I began to ask but stopped when I realized it had to have been Josh since he was at the bar last night with him.

In my head, I began plotting how I would get back at Josh for letting it slip about our situation, or whatever you wanted to call it. I was lost in my thoughts for a moment until I jumped when Hazel spoke up again on the other end of the phone that was still cradled to my ear.

“Did he just say you’re dating Reed and Josh?” she asked in a surprised whisper.

“I… uh… we—” I stuttered for a second, trying to come up with the best, simplest explanation, but nothing was coming. Instead, I insisted that I would call her back over her hurried arguments and pleas to not hang up the damn phone.

I tossed my phone on my bed as it began vibrating with what I assumed was another call from Hazel.

“How the fuck did you hear about that?” I asked, turning to Adam, who had the decency to at least appear a little apologetic.

“Okay, to be clear, I didn’t notice you were on the phone and had I known, I wouldn’t have just blurted that out. But I caught Josh staring at a picture of you last night and then saw that it was Reed who had sent it to him. At that point, he was caught, so it was either fess up to your little contest or me assume they were stalking you.”

I scoffed, crossing my arms in front of me. “Stalking me, really?”

He laughed and brushed past me, heading past the living room and into the kitchen. “I didn’t think they were stalking you, but I knew Josh wouldn’t hide the truth when I was accusing him of that. So, tell me, how’d the date go?”

“It was fine,” I lied. The date was great, magical, actually, and had kept me up most of the night because it had been nearly perfect.

“Eesh, that bad, huh? So, it’s probably gonna be Josh?”

I rolled my eyes and pulled a coffee mug from the cabinet as I turned on the coffee maker.

“That’s not what I meant. What I meant by ‘fine’ is that it’s none of your business.”

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