Page 74 of Mad Love

“Mm-hmm,” I say.

His eyebrows lift. “You don’t believe me?”

I lean in and whisper in his ear. “I think it’s been a while for you and you’re probably ready to have sex just for the sake of having sex.”

I said it playfully, recalling the conversation we had a while ago now about sex. But when I step back to look at him, grinning, the look on his face wipes it away. He looks hurt and maybe a little mad.

“Weston,” I whisper.

He tugs on his hair, a gesture I know by now means that he’s annoyed or anxious. Before I can say anything else, he moves closer to Felicity and asks Owen something about what he sees below.

The girls who took pictures with him say, “Bye, Weston Shaw,” loudly as they walk toward the gondola station and I’m tempted to duck out and go with them.

If I thinkthisis hard—it’s going to bereallyhard to hide my feelings when he actually starts sleeping with someone. It’s inevitable, and I can only hope I can get a handle on this before then. It’s funny that I would hear Sasha’s voice in my head about this now, but I do.

She’d be saying, “You know the best way to get over a man is to get under a new one, Sade,” and in the past, I’d laugh and tell her she may have a point.

But that’s the last thing I want to do, and I don’t think it would help anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

BACK IN MY FACE

WESTON

“We’ve missed you,” Henley says, giving me a bro-hug. “You haven’t been to the last two meetings.”

“I know. I’ve missed you guys too. We went to Landmark Mountain for Easter and then last weekend Caleb got a cold.”

“How’s he doing now?” Bowie asks.

I sit down at the round table at Luminary and take a long drink of my flat white. “Better. Still not a hundred percent, but better. I think he’s teething too.”

They all groan.

“That’s not for the faint of heart,” Rhodes says.

“I’ll tell you what’s not for the faint of heart,” Penn says. “Sam and the endless barrage of inappropriate questions. This week he wanted to know if I could tell him about sex because he said he’s getting conflicting messages from the other foster kids in his house. One told him you could get a girl pregnant by hugging too long. Another said only if you’re lying down and hugging at the same time.” He puts his hands in his hair and tugs. “I just want to do math, man. I don’t need all this other drama.”

“Who knew you are such a nerd?” Henley says.

We all laugh and I feel lighter than I have in weeks. I’ve been in a funk for a while—a couple of weeks, I guess—and it’s good to see my guys.

“He’s a curious kid. Tell it to him straight,” Bowie says.

“I agree. I was told so much shit when I was little, and I’m glad Bree and I still agree on this at least. We don’t want to skirt around the sex talk. We’ve already talked with Cassidy and we will with Audrey when she’s ten…unless she asks about it sooner than that.”

“Okay,” Penn says. “If you say so. I just don’t want to do anything to mess him up. He’s already dealing with a lot.”

Rhodes puts his hand on Penn’s shoulder and shakes him slightly. “Our boy here is getting attached. I think there might be some paternal strings in there after all.”

Penn scoffs. “Right. Me? Nah.”

I grin. “It happens to the worst of us.”

They all turn and look at me and I cringe because it feels like they can see right through me.

“What?” I say.

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