Page 33 of Head Over Heels

I turn away. “I am not.”

“You aretoo.”

I know she’s right; my face is hot enough to power Seattle’s grid. The waitress chooses that moment to show up with Eve’s French toast and my avocado-and-tomato omelette. I glare at Eve across the table and she smiles sweetly back.

We dig into our food, and I mentally cross my fingers that she’s been diverted from her previous line of questioning.

“Tell me,” Eve demands.

No such luck. “None of your business!”

“I’m your best friend, right?” she asks. “I at least merit a summary judgment.”

I know she’s right. As much as I don’t want it to have happened, I don’t want to lie to myself about it, either. “It was so good. Ridiculously good. Life-changingly good. But there are so many reasons it’s a bad idea.”

“Name one.”

“He’s myfriend.”

“Have I ever told you my Pandora’s Box theory of friends and sex? It’s not going back in the box, Liv, and no pun intended there. You crossed the line and you can’t go back, and you might as well enjoy it. If it’s going to end awkwardly, then whether you just kiss or whether you have screaming sex ten times a day for the next week and a half isn’t going to change that outcome. But youcouldhave a blast in the meantime.”

It sounds so logical, but it doesn’t chip away at the panic building in my chest.

“Liv,” she says sternly. “This isn’t Zeke. This isn’t some guy making you believe he’s going to give you forever and then stomping all over your heart.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“What?”

“Give him so much power. He was an asshole.”

“He was an asshole you were in love with.”

“But I’m not anymore.”

Eve narrows her eyes at me. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t still in there, messing with your head.”

“He’s not.”

“Have it your way,” she says, shrugging. “Either way, this thing with Chase isn’t anything like that. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something crazy, knowing full well that it has an expiration date. You move to Denver; you get a nice, clean break from whatever weirdness might arise. Everything doesn’t have to be serious. It’s the twenty-first century! Women get to have casual sex, too.”

I don’t say anything.

“Liv. You can’t tell me you don’t want to take a ride on that coaster before you head out of Disneyland!”

I start giggling and can’t stop. That starts her giggling, too, then outright laughing, until she has to grip the table to keep from tipping over and the people around us in the diner are giving us weird looks.

“God! I can’t believe you’releaving!Girl, I am going to miss you so darn much!”

“Me, too. You have to come visit all the time.”

“This is how much I love you: if I thought I could keep you from going, I wouldn’t sell you my car.”

She has tears in her eyes. Eve doesn’t cry, so that makesmecry. The other people in the diner have given up on making sense of us and returned to their conversations.

“And you have to come back all the time.”

We promise. We actually pinky-swear, which makes us both laugh and then cry some more.

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