Page 13 of Worth the Chase

Anna screamed, and my eyes grew wide as she slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry.” She dropped her hand. “But he asked you to go home with him?” She laughed loud. “I knew it. I knew this day would come. Matthew O’Grady is rueing the day he ever let you go!”

“We were never together,” I snapped in response.

“I know, but he wants to be,” she added with a giant smile.

“He was drunk,” I said, hoping that little nugget of information would bring her back to reality.

“You know what they say.” She blew out a breath, and I knew exactly what was coming next. “Drunk mouths are truth-tellers.”

“You know I don’t believe that,” I argued because I didn’t.

Everyone loved to say that the bitter truth came out when people were drunk, but I never agreed. Add alcohol to a sad person, and their sadness raged to the forefront. If a person wanted attention or affection, they’d say the things that would get it. What they said didn’t have to be the truth at all; it just needed to get them the result they had subconsciously been seeking in the moment.

“So, you don’t think hereallywanted to take you home to pound town?” She gyrated her hips like a madwoman, making the entire couch bounce up and down.

I laughed and begged her to please never do that again. “He might have meant it. Who knows? But obviously, I turned him down,” I reminded her because, otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting here on this shitty couch with her.

“Only because you don’t want him to be your first.” She pursed her lips as she delivered that statement like she’d pulled it out of a book of facts or something.

But she wasn’t wrong. I didn’t want Matthew to be my first. Or my any.

“Oh my gosh. Do you think he knows?” she asked.

My cheeks heated with the thought. “That I’m a virgin?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“Yeah?”

“How would he know that?”

“I don’t know. Guys, like, know things.” She stumbled on her words, and I suddenly grew anxious, thinking she was keeping something from me.

“Anna,” I growled.

She put her hands in the air. “I was just asking. I swear.”

“Well, unless you or someone else gave him that information, I don’t know how he would know something like that.”

I found myself getting angry. For what reason, I had no real idea. Apparently, I didn’t want Matthew to know I was a virgin. It wasn’t any of his business. He had no right to know something that personal about me. No one did unless I chose to share it.

“I would never do that,” she said softly, and I felt like a jerk for even thinking she might.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She was suddenly back to her happy self. “So, when does the house-hunting start?”

“He wants to go tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? That man is wasting no time.” She clapped her hands together like she was in on some sort of master planning session with him.

“It works out since we open the restaurant in a few days, and then I’ll be too busy.”

“Think we’ll have to reserve a stool for him at the new bar?”

I rolled my eyes. “I think Addi might kick him out if he tries.”

I had no idea if that was true or not, but I couldn’t imagine Addison loving the bar turning into some kind of hangout the way the saloon was. Then again, as long as we were making money, she might not care. Guessed I’d find out soon enough.

“Will you be disappointed if he doesn’t show up there?”

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