Page 93 of Better Left Unsaid

“Dom.” I ran a hand through my hair, overwhelmed. I was suddenly feeling so desperate, so anxious, I wanted to scream. Instead, I grabbed hold of what was possibly the least important thing in the world and held on tight as I asked, “Are you still coming to Isabella’s birthday party?”

He shrugged. “Probably not. If I say yes to this deal, then I’ll be in Italy already.”

He was going to miss her birthday? “But you’ve never missed a birthday.”

“I know, but I have to move on with my life, Maria,” he reminded me, and that desire to scream became almost overwhelming.

What he wasn’t saying was that he was moving on with his life with or without me. “Is there any path where we can still be friends?” I’d be crushed if I lost Dom completely like that.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “In time.”

Did you hear that? The sound you heard was my heart breaking into a million tiny pieces that would take a miracle to be put back together again. “What am I supposed to do?”

Then he smiled and said, “Be happy. You’re supposed to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. It might take accepting a little change, but you can get there.”

“Change?” I shook my head.

“You know, the thing you’re so incredibly afraid of. And that fear of it that I think holds you back from even being honest with yourself.”

If there was a hidden message in there, I had no idea what he was saying. I didn’t like change. So what? Not everyone did. But I was always honest with myself.

Except maybe about my feelings for him. Because I knew I’d certainly had them. But what the hell did they mean?

Was I afraid to lose my friend and that was why I couldn’t figure it out? Was that what Dom was subtly trying to tell me?

Chapter Thirty-Two

Maria

The way Biancaand Perla’s mouths hung open I feared they might start catching flies. Why had I listened to Jade about telling them about my friends-with-benefits thing with Dom and how that plus our friendship had been incinerated recently?

There was really no other way to describe it than in the context of a raging fire. It felt like everything Maria and Dom had been thrown in the fire, left to burn to a crisp. One thing I knew was that I only liked it when my marshmallows wound up that way.

I cleared my throat and looked to Allie and Jade. “Did they hear me?” I asked when no one spoke. Then I looked to Bianca and Perla. “Did you hear me?”

Maybe they were in shock. Perla, that I understood, she was like me in that way, preferring to take time to process. But I didn’t think I’d ever seen Bianca like this. Between the two of them, it felt like they were acting like I’d just told them I’d made a sex tape that had been released and gone viral.Thatwould’ve been something that warranted their level of shock.

Finally, Bianca slapped the table. “Uhh, yeah, I heard you. Sorry, just trying to imagine a world where my big sister has meaningless sex with her best friend.” Figured that was what she’d get out of everything I’d just said, basically bringing my sisters up to speed on my life. Or at least the parts of it they had no clue about.

“Three years, you said?” Perla asked, her face contorted like she was trying to calculate a complex math problem.

I nodded and shook my hand back and forth. “Give or take a few months. Mostly give.”

“That’s like, what? Hundreds of rounds in the sack,” Perla said, and I realized that was the math problem she was trying to solve. Gross, by the way. “Especially if your little ‘arrangement’”—yes, she used air quotes—“was going strong when you two were single. You’ve both been single a lot lately.”

Way to state the obvious.

“And you two knew?” Bianca looked at Allie and Jade and asked them pointedly.

Allie grimaced. “Yeah, kind of interrupted them.”

“Same,” Jade said, laughing.

Gasping, Bianca covered her mouth. “You saw them do the nasty?”

I shook my head. We were getting off-track here. “What? No! Can we focus here, please?”

Bianca’s look switched from disgusted to offended in two seconds flat. “How could you not tell us?” she asked Allie and Jade.

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