Page 54 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“He’s been worried aboutyou.” So worried, I felt super guilty not giving him updates aboutMatt’s recovery. But how could I do that without revealing thatMatt and I were still in touch?

“Worried enough that hehasn’t called me since the wedding?” Matt shook his head. “Nope.He’s pissed at me.”

I rolled my eyes. “He thinks you’repissed at him.”

“How do youknow?”

“Because he’s my brother andwe talk to each other. He’s a wreck. He thinks he lost his bestfriend and his wife-to-be in the same day.” There was only one wayto motivate Matt into contacting Scott. “I’m not going to doanything sexy with you until you sack up and call him.”

“How am I supposed to doanything sexy with you after I talk to your brother and apologizefor doing sexy things with you?”

I’d already thought aboutthat. The inevitability of admitting to Scott that things betweenMatt and I hadn’t ended. “Don’t apologize for it. If he brings itup—and I don’t think he will because he hasn’t said a word about itto me—say you regret hurting him. But be honest. If he brings itup, you have to tell him we’re still talking. It feels gross tokeep lying, even by omission.”

“That’s a much better planthat ruining our friendship via perpetual avoidance,” he admitted,if reluctantly.

“Thanks. It’s part of my ownplan.” I might as well be honest with him, since I was encouraginghim to be honest with my brother.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Mattasked.

“I’m hoping he does ask youabout me, so I don’t have to be the one who has that conversation.”I was being honest. “Do what you need to do and call me backtonight.”

A tiny part of me worriedthat theywouldtalk about the I-fucked-your-sister of it all, and thingsbetween Matt and I would be over.

And that was the last thing Iwanted.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

(Matthew)

I held my breath while thephone rang. I shouldn’t have been nervous to call one of my oldestfriends, but we’d never gone this long without at least talkingover Discord. I’d been skipping out onWorld of Warcraft, claiming my painmeds were making me too woozy.

Maybe Scott had beenskipping out on raids, too.

The call rang several times, so I wasbraced for voicemail when it connected. I wasn’t braced to hearScott’s grim, “Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” we both said atthe same time.

“What do you have to besorry for?” I asked, chuckling. “I’m the one who ghosted you rightafter the worst day of your life.”

“I’m trying not to think ofit as the worst day of my life,” Scott said, but in our two decadesof friendship, I’d never heard him so beaten down. “And you didn’tghost me. You were attacked by a bear. Because of me.”

“I was attacked by a bearbecause of me,” I corrected him. “It was my bright idea to fly thedamn thing in.”

“It was Lauren’s idea. She’sthe one who pushed for it.”

“Then this is clearlyLauren’s fault.” Glad to have that out of the way. “How are youdoing? Have you spoken to her?”

“She sent me an email.”Scott scoffed. “Like we were ending a business transaction. If youprinted this thing, it would have been pages—”

“You didn’t’ print it, didyou?” I interrupted. I wasn’t sure I could help my friend if he wasso far gone that he was printing emails like aneighty-year-old.

“No, I didn’t.” He wasn’tvery convincing. “But it was all bullshit about how she’d known fora long time that we weren’t going to work out and then she gotswept away in the responsibilities of planning the wedding… Therewere so many opportunities for her to step off the bus. We had longconversations about communication being the most important thing ina relationship and wow, she threw those back in myface.”

I’d never liked Lauren, but now was notthe time to mention it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. And I’msorry about the way it all went down.”

“Like I said, you were inbad shape. I was worried we were going to lose you, when I heardyou were back in surgery.” Scott sounded choked up by theidea.

“Hey, I wasn’t worried.Because I’m never going to die.”

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