Page 9 of Dopplebanger

She nodded, but the crinkle between her eyebrows made it clear a certain level of confusion was still at play. “So, are you going to get laid or not? I’m going through a dry spell, leaving me no choice but to live vicariously through you, and so far, it’s been dreadfully puritanical.”

“If you’re calling it a dry spell after only two months of breaking up with a guy, I’m going through the Sahara Desert of dry spells.”

“I’m not disagreeing. It’s why I’ve been telling you to sleep with your supah hot boyfriend since before he was even technically your boyfriend.”

Sometimes I wished it was that easy. Just erase one guy and every memory of him with another. Before today, I didn’t think that my connection to Evan was strong enough to

erase the last guy—the one I’d been with since I was seventeen.

Five years together that included promises of forever, and then he sleeps with one of my best friends. Not Tori, obviously. She was a more recently-acquired best friend. When I was crushed and suddenly in need of a new place to live, she had a room for rent. We’d been doing the roomie thing for the past nine months. And yes, I knew that taking that many months to move on from a breakup was pathetic, especially considering that my exes—BFF and boyfriend—had literally moved on, as in went back to our hometown and were now shacked up. Since I was from this tiny town where everyone knew everyone, they’d also be attending the same wedding I was this weekend. Fun times, right?

When I’d hinted to Madison, the bride-to-be, that I might not be able to come to the wedding because of a certain bridesmaid, my ex-best friend called in tears and begged for forgiveness. Which made it pretty clear that while Madison had been one of my best friends since kindergarten, I couldn’t completely trusther, either—after all, she’d sworn not to tell Paige, and clearly she had. Trying to be the bigger person, I promised to try to put our unsavory past behind us and come to the wedding.

Luckily, I was used to shoving down my own feelings to save others from being uncomfortable. I also figured attending the wedding and showing how fine I was would keep everyone in my small town from giving me pity-filled looks. All I really wanted was to move on, and I had.

Mostly.

Thinking of all the inevitable drama made my nerves use the inside of my stomach as a trampoline, and I told myself it’d be okay. Evan was going with me. It’d be much easier to show everyone how fine I was with him by my side.

And we have sparks! Delicious, addictive sparks!Thank goodness my heart had finally woken up from months of dormancy and remembered how to flutter.

“Okay, since it sounds like I don’t need to pack a bag and crash your road trip anymore…?” Tori paused, waiting for me to confirm or deny.

“No, I don’t think your crashing is necessary, but I love you for being willing to do that for me.”Even if you’d be a disastrous wedding crasher, and no one in my hometown would ever speak to me again.

“You know I got your back. But since this is the last time I get to see you in way too many days, I say we order pizza and finish bingeingThe Originals.We’ve established that Klaus is mine, right?”

“You can have the antihero vampire with the British accent. But Elijah’s all mine.” There was something about the protective brother who was a gentleman, even at his most deadly, that was crazy hot.

“Deal.”

I glanced down at my clothes. My office manager position at the animal clinic meant I did more admin stuff than working directly with the animals, yet I almost always ended up with a layer of dog and/or cat hair. Today I also had doggy shampoo splatters, thanks to an impromptu grooming job. I knew I should force myself to get up, change, and pack so I’d be ready for tomorrow.

Oh, yeah. We still need to set a firm shove-off time.Which meant I should call Evan. A text would do, but I wanted to hear his voice and relive the thrill of this morning. Unless the spark didn’t carry over the line, because that might end with me being unsure all over again, and it’d felt so good to be sure about something today.

Am I really ready for… ending my dry spell?I’d only ever had sex with one guy, and he’d cheated on me, which made me hesitate to cross that line for two reasons: one, I’d fallen hard, and getting over that betrayal and heartbreak sucked. And two, I worried that I was bad at sex. Because otherwise, why would he need to go search it out with someone else? Someone I knew was a lot more experienced, both from her tales of her sexual exploits, to overhearing guys at school talking about how wild she was in bed—something that far from described me.

Honestly, there were probably more than two reasons I’d hesitated with Evan—i.e., not feelingthe thing—but those two stuck out. But how would I truly move on if I didn’t fully put myself out there?

I could always pack some racy lingerie, just in case…

Do I even have sexy stuff that fits me anymore?

I stood, and Tori looked up at me, her arched eyebrows askingwhere do you think you’re going,missy?without her having to voice the words.

“I just need to change and pack real quick. I’ll try to get it all done before the pizza arrives. Then we can settle in and watch our show.”

Tori swiped her dyed platinum stripe behind her ear, where it stood out from her natural dark brown strands. “Well, I’ll try to be patient, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait that long for my Klaus fix. Remember how I’m the one going through a dry spell and you’re about to end yours?”

“I’m still not sure about that,” I said.

But for the first time in a long time, I felt rather optimistic.

FIVE

“How’d it go with Gwen?” Evan asked as soon as I answered the phone.

Amazing. I kissed her and felt something I’ve never felt before.I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her smile and her laugh and the way her body molded to mine for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, guilt came along for the ride and took some of the fun out of the memory.

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