Page 58 of The One I Want
“Ignore these two,” Simon says. “Go on.”
I take a sip of coffee as I try to figure out where to start. Because I haven’t processed anything about last night. All I know is that the second I get her alone, I’m going to kiss her again.
“You guys were passing out and I got bored and stumbled up to her house,” I say. “She was outside on her porch, so we started talking.”
“Talking with your dick, you mean,” Simon says.
“No, you idiot. Actually talking. I know you guys let me vent last night, but I really didn’t get everything out. For some reason, with Betsy, I did. The beer helped. I let it all out. The anger. The sadness. The confusion. The relief. Everything.”
I might have been drunk, but I remember every minute of last night with her. Even if we hadn’t kissed, last night would have been one of the most memorable nights of my life.
“So what else?” Oliver asks. “It can’t end there.”
“Then—” I start laughing, trying to imagine how ridiculous we had to have looked. “We yelled.”
“Yelled?” Shane asks.
“Yup. Yelled. Screamed. I just got it all out of my system.”
“Wait! That was you?” Oliver says. “I thought it was a coyote.”
“Nope. All me. And her.”
The waitress comes over and sets down our food, but no one touches it. No one even reaches for the syrup. All eyes are glued to me. Even Shane, who usually couldn’t care less about something like this.
“Then I kissed her.”
It’s a good thing no one had a fork picked up. They probably would have dropped them.
“You kissed her?”
I nod at Oliver. “I kissed her.”
“Back up,” Shane says. “Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago where you two almost kissed and you said it wasn’t a good idea?”
Simon slaps me on the arm. “You two almost kissed before this and didn’t tell me? What the fuck, man?”
“You were out of town. And in my defense, I only told Oliver.”
Oliver’s eyes go wide. “And I told Shane because I needed to tell someone and I knew he wouldn’t tell anyone else.”
“Next time, put it in the group text,” Simon says, reaching for the syrup. “Where important things should go.”
“Noted,” I say. “But yes, we kissed. Then we went inside and we fell asleep. Fast forward to this morning and you are now all caught up.”
“Not all caught up,” Simon says, passing me the syrup. “The question now is, what are you going to do?”
“And the words ‘take it back because it was a mistake’ better not leave your fucking mouth, or I will beat your ass.”
I look at Shane, shocked he’s so invested in this. “Noted.”
He nods. “Good.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I say. “I didn’t see her this morning. She left to go pick up the kids in Nashville before I woke up. I’m going to see her later when I get home. I guess I’ll talk to her and see what she thinks.”
“But what do you think?” Oliver asks. “What do you want to happen? Remember, as of yesterday, you are a single man.”
I take a second to think about my answer, because while some things have changed, some have stayed the same.
