Page 171 of A Little Complicated

My shoulders fall, and I stare at my lap.

How did I fucking know?

“Look, Arch.” I sigh. “You know how sorry I am—”

“That’s the thing,” he interrupts. “Yeah, not telling me you were her mystery man was a dick thing to do, but…” He scratches the scruff along his jaw. “I don't know, man. Even without you in the picture, we were still…off. I wanted her to bethe one, but I was too busy forcing it to see the truth. And after our conversation in the hospital, I need to get this off my chest.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “You made me promise to take care of her. And I will,” he rushes out. “But I don’t want you feeling guilty for how shit went down.”

“I’m always gonna feel guilty for how shit went down,” I admit.

“Yeah, well, stop,” he orders. “Time’s too short for that.”

He’s right. It is. The heart monitor strapped to my chest is the perfect reminder of how I’m a ticking time bomb, and we’d be fools to squander the time we have left.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I mutter.

His mouth lifts. “Thanks. And I want you to stop walking on eggshells around me when it comes to you and Ophelia too.”

“We haven’t been walking on eggshells—”

“Bullshit,” he laughs. “I’m not blind, man. You’ve been walking on eggshells from the beginning. I know it’s because you were looking out for me—you’restilllooking out for me—and I appreciate it, but if I’ve recognized anything from all of this, it’s Lia and me? We weren’t meant to be. Not”—he gives me the side-eye—“romantically, anyway.”

The tension in his expression makes me laugh, and the tightness in my muscles softens. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear you say that.”

“Aw, come on.” He shoves at my shoulder. “Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m just saying,” I offer. “Hearing you weren’t physically connecting with Lia is like music to my fucking ears, brother.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. She’s your girl, not mine, but if you hurt her,”—he lifts his brows—“I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

Another laugh rumbles up my throat, and I reach for the door handle. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

And fuck me, I mean it.

53

OPHELIA

It’s a quiet game night. Okay, maybe not quiet, but relatively…small? And the usual accompanying chaos is absent since we kept the guest list to our closest friends. Everett, Griffin, Jaxon, Archer, Maverick, and Reeves sit cross-legged on the carpet along with Finley, Dylan, and me across from them. The coffee table is covered in black and white Cards Against Humanity cards, along with a few Sharpies, and we’ve laughed our asses off for the past hour.

The rules of the game are simple. Everyone has ten white cards with silly answers on the front. There are also black question cards. One person reads a question card aloud, and the other players anonymously pass a white answer card to the person. The person then reads all of the answers aloud and chooses which one is the best answer for their question.

However, a few years back, we started tweaking and personalizing the answer cards, depending on who’s playing. Some include familiar names. Others have certain words replaced with something else. It’s hilarious andhighlyinappropriate, especially for a girl like Dylan. But watching her blush as she reads the cards is probably my favorite thing ever.

“Okay.” She picks the black question card up and reads it aloud. “What would Dylan find disturbing and oddly charming?”

Reeves snorts and grabs a silver Sharpie from the center of the table, scrawling something on his answer card. Satisfied, he places the cap back in place and tosses the altered card face down toward her. The rest of us do the same until she has a not-so-neat pile of answers in front of her. Her nose scrunches as she scans the first one, slipping it back into the original jumble without a word.

“Not gonna read it out loud, Dylan?” Reeves questions across from her. He’s sporting a shit-eating grin makingmewant to squirm. I can only imagine how much Dylan’s dying inside from his attention.

Her eyes thin at him. “Why do you want me to?”

“It’s part of the game,” he reminds her.

She picks the silver Sharpie up from in front of him and tosses it into his lap. “Pretty sure writing on the cards is against the rules, so…”

“Pretty sure we make our own rules here.” He tugs the silver Sharpie’s lid off with his teeth and starts drawing a tattoo on the inside of his forearm next to a giant octopus, the tentacles wrapping around his wrist.

“Fine,” she huffs.

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