Page 80 of Zero Chance

My most persistent text bomber had surprisingly been Hope with an even dozen, followed by Thane with six, then Parker with four.Both Union and Oaklynn had sent me three each, then Ivey and his girl Faith copied each other with two a piece, and the rest had just popped in with one message.Except for Younger.He hadn’t sent me anything.

Which was why Alec was my guy.

He knew to leave me alone when I needed a minute to calm down.

A minute to step back and view the situation from a broader angle.

But thinking of Waverly’s advice only made me remember how big and brown and fucking intoxicating her eyes had been in the library.Which just wouldn’t do.

With a sigh, I shoved the phone back into my pocket without reading or listening to a single message because I just wasn’t ready yet.Still too close to it.

Except more of Waverly’s words kept haunting me as I strode to my Jeep.

Did hehaveto apologize?

You two shared a decade’s worth of friendship…

Wait.How the fuck didsheknow how long Ohrley and I had been friends?

Realizing the two of them had some kind of secret friendship away from the group annoyed me.She was supposed to bemyoutside friend, dammit.I’mthe one who irritated her like no one else, the one who stopped by her desk at the library nearly every day to harass her with some snarky comment that made her expression tighten with revenge.She’d even become one of my anchors.

Who the hell did Ohrley think he was horning in on one ofmyoutside friends?We shared all the others—reason number one why I was avoiding everyone right now.Because I already knew they’d all side with him and jump onmycase since I’d been the one to take off while he’d been willing to stay and talk shit out.

So why’d he have to go and claim Waverly too?

Asshole.

It was killing me that she wouldn’t tell me what kind of scrape he’d helped her with.I mean, didn’t she realize I couldn’t handle unanswered questions?They were like big red buttons that screamedDo Not Push.Now I wanted to jam my finger down on the issue until I knew every single detail about it.

But she’d also been right.

Parker and I had been through the whole grieving process together.I’d shared some of the darkest, most painful things about myself with him and the others.And he’d done the same for us.It had bound us in a way I wasn’t even sure how to break.Not that I wanted to.I knew I’d get over this and forgive him soon enough.But shit, right now it was irritating as hell to be so…stuck to him.

Not in the mood for a dozen different lectures about how I needed to forgive him and move on, I drove to my grandparents on the Laterman’s side.

When I’d first moved into Archer House, I’d done my own laundry.But Gram had asked and asked and fucking asked about it until I eventually gave in, and now I took a load over to her house every Friday afternoon for her to wash.

That seemed to make her feel happy and useful, so it had become a routine for me to pick my cleaned and folded laundry back up on Sunday nights.Then, because I didn’t want Nana on the Dugger side of the family to feel left out because she somehow always knew when I visited the other set of grandparents, I had to go over to the Dugger house directly afterward, where they’d feed me supper.

Hoping Gram had finished my laundry a day early, I pulled into the Latermans’ drive and whistled as I made my way to the front door.Without knocking, I headed inside, calling, “Hey, it’s me.”Tilting my head, I added, “Gram?Pop-Pop?You home?”

The front room was empty, which wasn’t surprising since neither Gram nor Pop-Pop had ever spent much time in here.But there were a couple of large, old boxes piled on the floor in the middle of the room that drew my curiosity.Slathered with about fifty years’ worth of tape, they were decorated in dozens of crossed-out Sharpie marker messages claiming their contents were either kitchen supplies, old books, or Christmas decorations.I was closing in on them for a better look when Gram appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“Why, Keene,” she exclaimed, her face brightening when she saw me.“What’re you doing here?You’re a day early.”

“Hey, Gram.”I ducked my head and turned my cheek her way so she could kiss it per her usual.“I was feeling bad because I had to leave so fast yesterday when I dropped off my clothes.”Oaklynn had given me and Younger strict instructions to set out games in the garage for the party before we were allowed to shower and wash up, so I’d barely dashed up the steps, thrust my laundry basket through the doorway, and then taken off again.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about entertaining a silly old woman like me,” Gram announced, even as she blushed and smiled, then batted at my arm, grateful for my attention.

“What’re you talking about?”I countered in mock outrage and set both my hands on my heart.“Silly old women are my favorite people to entertain.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes but kept smiling the whole time.“What am I ever gonna do with a devilish charmer like you?”

I knew she wasn’t looking for an answer, but I liked giving ’em anyway.Snagging her around the waist, I pulled her in for a big side hug and loudly kissed her temple, right through her stringy, straight gray hair.“Love me like I’m your favorite grandson, I reckon.”

“Well, I do that,” she agreed, nudging my ribs as I pulled away.“But only because you’re the only one I got.”

I laughed at her sassy comeback and finally motioned to the boxes.“What’s all this?”

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