Page 74 of Wildly Inappropriate

“I’m not sure if you saw it or not—Elise is sure you didn’t—but before I went back to my room, I left a note in my spot asking you to get breakfast the next morning.”

“I didn’t see it, Lila,” I say, my heart dropping in my chest, knowing she spent the past year thinking I’d stood her up the morning after we hooked up.

“Right.” Her shoulders rise as she takes a deep breath. “It’s just that when I asked you about it Sunday morning at breakfast with Jameo and Bryn, you said, ‘You’ve been around long enough to know what happened, Lila. I’m not proud of it, but it is how it is.’”

My mind is frantically trying to catch up. I have absolutely no idea what Lila is talking about. I know for certain that I never saw her note. I’m not saying I would’ve gone to breakfast, even though I woke up the next morning and was shocked by how sad the cold, empty spot next to me made me feel, but I at least wouldn’t have ghosted her.

“I didn’t get the note, Lila. I would’ve at least texted.”

“Okay,” she says, but I can tell she still doesn’t believe me. “But then why would you have said that when I asked you about it?”

“I truly have no idea. I don’t remember—” The morning in question comes flashing back into my mind. I was simultaneously excited that my game was going well and worried as hell Lila was going to say something that would clue Jameo into the fact that we’d hooked up Friday night. My game Saturday had been almost perfect, except for my tee shot off of hole one, which I had shanked because I thought I saw Lila in the crowd watching me. It turned out to be another woman with similar hair, but the surprise had been enough to pull me from my game.

“—I thought you were asking me about my shanked drive off of number one tee box.”

“What?”

“It was possibly the worst drive of my life. I barely made contact with the ball. My parents both called about it, and I was so embarrassed by it. I definitely didn’t want to talk about it with you. I thought you were bringing it up to make fun of me.”

“Well”—she thinks about her response—“does it make me a bad person that I feel better about that? Like, I don’t love I’ve been so unkind to you that you assumed I was going to try to make you feel bad about yourself, but I’m also mostly glad you didn’t just ghost me after the best night of sex of my life.”

“…until tonight.” I smirk at her. “And I promise to get you breakfast in the morning too.”

She laughs. “I do love breakfast.” She takes a drink of her water before turning serious again. “If we’re being honest about our past, I feel like we need to talk about that kiss. The one at the pre-Thanksgiving party.”

“Lila, I was 23—”

“I know. And I was 18. I get it now, I do. I just…it really hurt my feelings, is all. I thought you liked me. You kissed me. Then as soon as Wes left me alone, you said, ‘Fuck, that was a mistake’ and left me there by myself. Anyway, I was really embarrassed that you had to save me from a drunk guy at a party and, obviously, that I was a mistake.” She holds her hand up to stop me from cutting in. “I do get I was too young for you at the time. I just felt like you needed to know why I was such an asshole to you when we were together after that. You embarrassed me, so I wanted to embarrass you. I wanted you to feel as naïve and silly as I did. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Lila. I was the one who messed up that night. You were hot and funny, and my best friend’s 18-year-old sister. When I saw that jerk hitting on you and not leaving you alone, the only thought that crossed my mind was ‘kiss her, you idiot.’ So I did. And then I wanted to do it again. And again. But then I saw you look at that guy you dated your senior year of high school, and I realized how stupid I was. Of course you didn’t want me to kiss you. I was an old perv who just kissed you without even asking. I was jealous and ashamed and, honestly, worried about what would happen if Jameo found out. Our fighting was just as much my fault as it was yours.”

“You’re not perv amounts older than me.”

My mom’s comment from earlier about Lila being a child crosses my mind, and I realize I still haven’t told my parents Lila is here as more than just my date.Shit.They are not going to be pleased I’m distracted at a time like this.

“Not now, but at 18 and 23? It’s a bigger age gap then.”

“Still not. I wasn’t looking at some other guy, I was working up the courage to kiss you again.”

“Damn, I guess we’ve got some lost time to make up for, then, don’t we?”

Chapter thirty-five

Lila

“You’re not leaning intome enough,” JT says later that night, pulling me closer to him as we walk away from the restaurant and straight toward the elevator.

“I’m not sure we have to commit to that level of reenactment.”

“Of the best night of our respective lives? I respectfully disagree.”

“When have you ever respectfully disagreed with me? And why in the name of all things holy would you start now?”

“I see your point. It would be particularly inaccurate for this portion of the reenactment anyway. We didn’t run into that fucktard Alex until we were closer to the elevators.”

“Andrew.”

“I said what I said.”

---