Page 13 of Midnight Mate
“It’s nothing like that. It’s . . . someone I know. Or used to. His name’s Easton, and we—”
“Easton Raines? The hunky snowboarder?” Rudy’s eyes bulged.
“How do you even know who he is?”
“Your mom might have shown me his Facebook profile once.”
“My mom was Facebook friends with East?”
“Well, at first.” He hesitated. “I might have asked her to friend him and then show me a photo.”
I groaned. “You taught my mom how to Facebook stalk someone?”
“What did you expect? You refused to tell me his name, but you still have his letterman jacket. And whenever you mention your high school boyfriend, your face does this weird thing. I needed to know what I was dealing with.”
“My face doesnotdo a weird thing.”
“It does too, although I can’t blame you. Boy is fine. Ooh, introduce me.”
“No.”
“Fine. Bring me a pair of his underwear.”
“What? No.”
“Fine. Find out what cologne he wears.”
“I’m not talking about this anymore.”
I started to get up, but Rudy grabbed my arm, pulling me back down. “Okay, okay. I’ll shut up. What happened with Easton the Beaston?”
My brows lifted, and Rudy grinned then mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key.
“First, never call him that again. Second, he doesn’t wear cologne. And third,” Rudy’s face was turning red from holding in his responses, so I finished quickly, “I think I might still have a thing for him.”
Rudy’s lips fell apart, and he sucked in air, obviously on a breath held that entire time.
“You didn’t have to hold your breath.”
“Yes, I did,” he said. “Trust me.”
After a few more gulps of air, he said, “I can’t believe he let you go. What the hell was that idiot thinking?”
A soft spot pinged in my heart. “Thanks,” I said. “But it wasn’t really about me.” I sighed. “I mean, even then, I could see East had some demons to battle. Not that he told me what they were. He was closed off. Secretive. But I knew there were things he was running from that had nothing to do with me.”
Things like him being a werewolf—which I felt mildly bad for not telling Rudy now, but I’d made a promise once. And I intended to keep it.
Rudy propped his chin in his hand, his eyes glazed. “How romantic.”
I glared. “Or heartbreaking. Depending.”
He straightened. “Right. That’s what I meant.”
“Anyway, he probably has no idea how hard I’d fallen for him because then we graduated, and he just vanished. No calls. No letters. No decency to end things officially.”
“Seriously? He ghosted you?”
I sighed, hating how I could still feel the sting of his rejection even after all these years. “The night of graduation, he was supposed to pick me up so we could go to our friend’s party. But he never showed. When I called, it went straight to voice mail. A couple of days later, the phone number was disconnected altogether. When I checked his social media, he’d moved out of state. I got the message loud and clear.”
