Page 13 of From Our First

“He’s a great guy,” Paris said, and we all looked at her. She shrugged. “What? He is.”

“However, since he’s currently back with his ex-wife, we don’t need to add him to any of my lists.”

“True. I was just thinking of the what-ifs…” Paris trailed off, and Hazel snorted.

“You mean what if I had gone on a date with that man? Then I wouldn’t be with Cross, most likely. And that means you wouldn’t be with Prior, and Dakota wouldn’t be with Macon. But sure, let’s think about what would have happened if I’d gone on a date with…what’s his name?”

“It doesn’t matter. And I don’t like that.” Dakota paused. “You being the first one to meet a Brady brother changed everything.”

The hot tea splashed over the side of my cup, and I cursed.

“Are you okay?” Dakota asked, helping me clean up my spill.

Paris gave me a weird look. “You’re never sloppy. What’s wrong?” she asked.

I shook my head, ignoring her. They didn’t need to dive into why I felt guilty. Maybe Nate and I had been wrong. Perhaps we should tell them the truth about our past. But what good would it do? I wasn’t sure it would do any good, other than to maybe keep some of this guilt off my shoulders. Or perhaps it would stress me out more than I already was and give me even more guilt. It wasn’t as if Nate and I were going to pick up where we left off. So, it didn’t matter what our past was. And we weren’t lying. Not really. We were simply keeping part of the truth out of our daily conversations.

“Anyway, while Nate is a wonderful person, we’re not going on another date,” I said, trying not to trip over my words. I still hated him, even if I was forced to spend time with him. He had broken my trust and had changed the way I thought of myself. So, no, I would never be his number one fan. And I never wanted to go out on another date with him.

“I can’t believe Nate was a dud.”

“Is it Nate or Nathaniel?” Paris asked. “I’ve always wanted to know, and it just never came up.”

“It’s actually Nathan.” I froze as the other women looked at me.

“How do you know that?” Hazel asked, studying me closely. I did my best to look nonchalant.

“You made me go on a date with the man. I picked up on a couple things.”

“It looks like the two of you talked, at least.” Dakota shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t too bad.”

“For a woman who pushed away from the idea of dating more than any of us did,” I began, “you sure are pushy now.”

“You pushed just as hard to get me to go in that direction,” Dakota said tightly, even though her tone was still sweet.

“Maybe. And I won’t say I regret it because look how happy you guys are. But perhaps I didn’t need to push that hard.”

Paris snorted. “You’re only saying that because you’re on the other side now.”

“That is the truth.” I laughed. “However, Nate and I are just friends.” I swallowed hard at the lie and hoped the others didn’t notice.

Dakota nodded. “That’s fine. As long as you can get along while we’re hanging out with the group. We will find you the perfect someone. And when Nate finds someone for himself, we can expand our group.”

I ignored the slight twinge of jealousy at that thought. I did not want to go out on a date with Nate. I did not want to be jealous of him finding romance with someone else. I might feel a twinge of jealousy, but that didn’t make it real. It was probably indigestion.

“I still can’t believe you set us up and lied to both of us.”

“It wasn’t a lie,” Paris said quickly.

“It sure as hell felt like one,” I argued.

“It wasn’t,” Hazel said. “Nate needs to get out, too. I think the brothers are starting to feel sorry for him. Mostly because he’s always been the most connected of the bunch to women and their feelings.”

I froze, wondering what she meant by that. “Excuse me?” I asked.

Once again, Hazel studied me, giving me a weird look. “He’s Arden’s twin. He’s always understood her differently. Better. At least, that’s what Cross told me. And from what I’ve seen when they interact, he’s always understood women a bit more than the rest of them. They’ve all said so, too.”

I had fallen for that, hadn’t I? The lure of how he seemed to understand everything that I was thinking. Even if it had been a lie. If he had truly understood me, he wouldn’t have said the words he did.

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