Page 139 of Wingwoman
Her eyes narrowed. “Isn’t the expression when theironis hot?”
“Potato, potahto.”
I bent and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. But before I could pull away, she gripped the neckline of my shirt, keeping me there, nose to nose with her. “Hey,” she said, “you know you can tell me anything, right?”
Gulp.
“Of course,” I rasped.
Reluctantly, she released me.
As I walked to my studio, journal of lyrics tucked under my arm, I couldn’t help but cringe at the fact I’d just lied to Hope… right to her face.
Right now? I don’t know anything.
I especially don’t know how I’ll keep my promise to get her out of this with her heart intact now.
Thirty-Eight
HOPE
“So he just ran off?”Maggie asked me, taking a bite of her Reuben.
Morosely, I pushed some salad around my plate and nodded.
“He said he needed to write some lyrics down.”
She considered that for a moment while chewing. “Well, maybe he did. Maybe you telling him you were falling in love with him inspired him to write.”
“Maybe.” But something was off. Something was really off. Ever since that night, he’d been acting really weird.
In the two weeks since I’d told him I was falling for him, we’d only had sex a few times. And usually I’d wake up to find him in the other room, strumming his guitar, or writing, or in the TV room watching a movie with Cash.
It was just… off. Even though to most people, it probably looked totally normal.
“Have you ever heard the name Jenn?”
Maggie gave me a weird look. “Like in my lifetime have I ever known anyone by that name? Sure.”
I shook my head. “No… in relation to Josh. The night of the gala, there was this girl who showed up at his house in a gown. She wanted to come to the gala and it was… it was strange. She had this crazy haunted look about her. And Josh’s other friend Nina was there with them. The whole thing was just weird.”
“LikeSixteen Candlesweird? OrSwimfanweird?”
“More like…Girl Interruptedweird.”
“Oh.”
I nodded. “Yeah. She’s his ex. But that shouldn’t bother me, right? I mean, we all have exes.”
Even still, there was this niggling itchy feeling I had at the back of my mind. Like there was something there. Something Nina had said to me when we first met. But I couldn’t remember it.
Speaking of exes, my phone buzzed from its face down position on the table beside me.
Maggie arched her brow at me. “Brent again?”
I turned the phone over and sighed as another text came through from him. He’d been calling regularly and texting nonstop. He’d all but said the words: I made a mistake.
Hope from four months ago would have been dancing for joy at seeing these constant texts coming through. She would have lamented his misery and jealousy. But now? I didn’t give a damn about Brent or his new fiancé.
