Page 21 of Play the Last Track
“Remember the rules, Reed.” I roll my eyes as she pushes past me for the stairs. “Stay in your lane. This is a business deal.”
“A business deal? I thought you were helping out a friend? Me being the friend,” I reply as I follow her down the stairs. I’ve done that a lot since she got here this afternoon. Follow her around. It’s as if I’m drawn to her, like there’s a rope attached to me and she’s holding the other end, tugging me along at her pleasure.
“I am offering you my fake girlfriend services for a free place to live. It’s an exchange of goods. A business deal.” She hops off the last step and looks up at me, her bright blue eyes sparkling with sarcasm and playfulness. God, how I missed those eyes over the last few months.
If nothing else, I am grateful that she’s finally looking me in the eye again.
Katie thinks she’s a closed book. She hides behind this wall of stubbornness and sarcastic comments. When I met her over a yearago, she was loud and boisterous. She was Ivy’s loud friend whose laugh sounded like something musical, yet her happiness never quite reached her eyes. I don’t think Ivy really saw it.
Or, maybe it’s only because I started becoming more and more of a regular at the bar after practice just so I could stare and study her. You see, Katie Murphy was a mystery I was determined to crack the moment I met her.
She had a job, friends, and what Ivy described as a boring yet loving boyfriend at the time, but as someone who masks their own feelings about things, I am a master at recognizing when someone is faking their way through their day. I watched the way her gaze would linger a little too long on couples who sat close enough to be in each other’s laps whenever they came into the bar. I saw the small cringe whenever that asshole would come in, kissing her on the cheek as a hello and then ignoring her for the rest of the night while he drank with his buddies and she worked, serving them all. I saw the way she looked at Ivy and Scott, like she was seeing right before her very eyes what she had settled without.
She confirmed it to me herself that night in Italy. She spilled those secrets and made me promise not to tell anyone. She took off the mask.
Katie Murphy is loud, stubborn, and hilarious. She’s a good friend and a dutiful daughter.
But she’s also a big, fat fucking liar.
I see her.
I see the way she struggles with control over her own life and the way she thinks she’s failing. I see the way she declares she’s independent with a hint of regret in her tone because, deep down, she would just like someone to lessen the load sometimes. I know she knows all of this, that her internal struggle is constant becauseshe knows the difference between settling for less and knowing she deserves better.
She’s just way too damn stubborn to see thatbettercould be me.
I think.
“Where do you want this one?” Scott says, walking through the open front door with a box in his arms and clothes, still on their hangers, piled on top.
“Second floor, bedroom at the front of the house.” Katie points to the ceiling, dazzling Scott with a smile he returns with a scowl.
He passes me on the stairs. “Second floor guest bedroom. The one across the hall from you?”
“She chose it herself.” I shrug, giving him one of my cheeky grins. He narrows his eyes and sets off up the stairs.
“That’s the last one,” Ivy says, also coming through the door and patting the pile of boxes just inside the entryway.
“What is all this stuff?” I ask.
“Clothes. Shoes. Handbags,” Katie rattles off, and it makes me frown. Katie wears black. Black jeans, black hoodies, black shoes. I haven’t seen her in anything other than dark clothing in months. Who thought she’d have so many different options for black?
“I’ll bring up the rest. You guys can head off if you want.” I nod at Ivy.
“Good,” Scott says as he comes back down the stairs.
“No!” Katie says at the same time, her voice pitching as she grabs a hold of Ivy’s arm. “We should order takeout. First dinner in the house and all.”
“I have a bathroom to finish tearing the tiles off in. No dinner.”
“Don’t be a grump,” Ivy says, untangling her arm from Katie’s and taking a few steps up the stairs so she can kiss her fiancé. “The bathroom can wait. Let’s order dinner. I’m starving.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“And you always feed me. Let’s stay.” It takes only a couple of seconds for Scott to cave. He and I take the rest of the boxes up to Katie’s new room before joining the girls in the living room. They’ve made themselves at home, both tucked into the couch with a glass of wine and a packet of chips between them.
“What do you feel like?” I ask them.
Katie looks up, her blue eyes gleaming as they find mine. There’s a challenge in those eyes. Like she’s planning all the ways she’s going to make these next few months the hardest of my life. “Italian.”
