Page 17 of The Love Wager

“Sorry,” I tell her.

“No worries. We’ll get better at this, yeah?”

I nod, not fully understanding her meaning. Even after I crank the truck and we’re on our way, I wonder what she thinks we’ll get better at.

The truck has been silent for the last few miles as I drive toward Freedom Inn on the outskirts of town.

“Surprised you didn’t stay on the estate,” I tell her, toying with the radio dial to have something to do with my hands.

If she was unnerving last night, she’s even more so today. There’s an energy about her that has my entire nervous system firing on full cylinders.

She huffs. “Privacy is big in my book. I don’t want to stay with a million bridesmaids and groomsmen.”

Solid reasoning, but now the line of conversation I thought would get her to fill the ringing silence with words has failed.

“Why aren’t you staying there?” she asks, and I grin as I look over and see her realize why and regret her question.

“I live here, Indie.”

Her earthy amber eyes lock on mine as there’s an electric moment between us. I realize it’s the first time I’ve said her name.

“I’d have thought, with yourwinningpersonality, they’d want you to stay there with everyone else. With all that charm oozing from you, you have to be, what, the best man?”

Shifting my lower jaw back and forth at her jab, I shake my head and look forward. A lot of shit in my life has turned me into a grouch, but I’m not allthatbad. She caught me on an off night but won’t let me off easy.

“I am, actually.”

“Stop!” She laughs.

“Spencer and I have been best friends since elementary,” I add dryly.

Her laugh drifts into a cough. “Oh, well… good for you. Friendship is hard.”

Friendship is hard?That’s all she’s got for me?

It seems she’s grasping at straws to keep this conversation alive, too.

“Well, you seem close to Taylor, and your bag of party tricks and treats would mark you as the maid of honor, would it not?” I toss back, gripping the steering wheel a bit too tight, hearing the leather warn me with a creak.

“Yeah, it would. I was just saying a friendship that long has to be hard.”

“Mm, not in a small town where options are limited. Not that it’s a friendship of convenience or anything. It just always has felt... easy. Even when he left for his big city college and came back.”

“One hell of a guy,” she mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just… marrying his one true love, friends since elementary school with his bestie. Either I’m in a Hallmark film, or this town is perfect.”

I scoff, releasing a breath fraught with tension. “Nothing around here iseasy. Sure, Spencer’s a great guy, but we’ve had some fights…” I trail off, actually trying to recall one.

“Oh, yeah?! Name one.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

I’m coming up empty until I remember when he pummeled me at Duke’s. We’d both had to do dishwashing for an entire summer to pay for the damages.

“One time, he beat my ass at the diner. Both of us got into a shit ton of trouble over it. Him, more so, being who his family is around here.”

“What did you fight over?”

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