Page 9 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

But not now.

2

Christa

It’ll never be the same again.

I’m not sure River knows it, but I sure as hell know it. I can feel the shift between us deep in my bones. As soon as we got back to the party, pretending like we didn’t just have the most amazing sex of our lives, I knew it.

There’s no going back, though. It’s done.

The worst part? I haven’t had enough. I want more. So much more.

“Christa, where are you?”Teagan asks.

I give her a startled look. “I phased out again, didn’t I?” I mumble, quickly looking around to remind myself of where we are. Oh, right, dinner at Lechon. Just the two of us. She and Tony are off on their honeymoon tomorrow.

“You’ve been like this since you got back into town,” Teagan says. “Off. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay; I promise.” I give her a weak smile.

She doesn’t seem satisfied with my answer, though. In the meantime, I’m trying to scrub the image of River’s gorgeous body out of my mind. I made myself come last night just thinking about him. Then I imagined his brothers joining in on the fun, and that just made me come even harder.

“I don’t know what happened to you in Los Angeles, but I can tell something happened,” Teagan says. “Maybe you’re not ready to tell me everything, and I respect that; I totally do. But I want you to know I’m here for you, okay?”

“Oh, Teagan, I know,” I say and take a sip of my wine.

The waiter comes by to clear our table. We wait for him to leave before I gather the courage to tell her at least some of my truth.

“Los Angeles was amazing,” I say. “It really was.”

“But?” she prompts.

I nod slowly. “I had a good gig there. Took me a while to find a something worth my while after CalTech. You’d be surprised how little a magna cum laud accolade counts over there. But I made it. I carved my path, and I landed a great position at a massive hedge fund management consortium. Massive.”

“Which one?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but it’s better if you don’t know yet, anyway.”

Teagan frowns slightly. “What happened?”

“I thought I was on my way up. I didn’t care about anyone or anything else. I did my job, I did it right, I was… Iamreally good at what I do. But at one point, I opened my eyes and looked around and I realized it wasn’t the right place for me. So I left. I lost my boyfriend—”

“You lost him?” She sounds confused.

“Let’s save that story for another day. I don’t want to bum you out before your honeymoon.” I try to move the conversation along because there’s a knot tightening in the pit of my stomach as a slew of unpleasant memories come rushing back to me. “Point is, I left. I left everything behind, and I came back here.”

Teagan’s eyes keep searching my face. We’ve known each other for so long that I can’t easily hide anything from her. Los Angeles was a different kettle of fish. I didn’t have any real friends there. I could conceal more of myself. But Teagan could always read me like an open book.

“Christa, whatever you went through, I’m sorry. I can tell from the way you talk about it that it left some deep wounds,” she says in a gentle voice. “I’m never going to pressure you into telling me more. I just want you to understand something. The longer you keep it in, the harder it’ll be to heal and finally put it behind you.”

“No argument there,” I scoff. “I just want to focus on the future.”

“Ah, the future, yes. That brings us to the next point on this dinner’s agenda.”

“Agenda? We had an agenda?” I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Well, yeah. You’re back. I want to make sure you stay.”

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