Page 79 of Desired Hearts
I took a sip. “Not bad,” I said, whispering, “but I’d much rather taste you.” Heading toward the fridge, I asked the group, “Where are we at?”
“Despite the fact that I don’t need babysitters?” Beck said, his body language as he sat, slumped, on a kitchen island stool indicating otherwise. “We’re all just really hungry. We waited for you to order Chinese.”
“How’s he doing?” I asked Mason, who handed me a bottle opener for my beer.
“Not good.”
“Talk to me,” I said to Beck, heading back toward Delaney. This might not be the reunion we’d hoped for, but I still got to be close to her. Leaning against the counter, like she was, I waited for my friend to open up.
The exact opposite of Mason, Beck had no problem sharing his feelings. Problem was, he had a lot of them. Sure, he was the life of the party, but the guy felt big. And I knew today was a bad day for him.
“I knew she was finished in April and maybe coming back. But I wasn’t expecting it to be with some French asshole. Engaged. Fuck.” He took a long swig of beer. Judging by the empties in front of him, it was one of many.
“Delaney, want to help me order?” Pia asked.
I was pretty sure two of them weren’t needed to order Chinese food, but Delaney said, “Sure,” as they headed out of the kitchen, presumably to leave the three of us to talk. I watched Delaney until she was gone and got caught by Mason staring at her ass.
Not caring, I focused back on Beck.
“You guys talk all the time. You’re telling me this was a surprise?”
“I knew she was dating someone. But… engaged? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Beck had been in love with Mae O’Malley for as long as I’d known him. The two of them grew up next door from each other, and it still amazed me Beck—of all people—had never once made a move on her. Sure, she was a few years younger and by the time she was in high school Beck had been a freshman in college. But she hadn’t left to attend a pastry school in France until a few years later.
Like Pia, Mae apparently saw through the show Beck put on for the rest of the world. He said once in college, drunk off his ass, that “Mae is the only person who really knows me.” The next day, Cole had something to say about that since we were seniors by then, the four of us considering ourselves best friends who knew each other well.
But it was Mae we were talking about. The woman who required us to come up with the “never date your neighbor” rule when devising the bachelor pact. Because, in some alternate universe, if the very sweet Mae O’Malley ever realized her friend had a lifelong crush on her and, more remarkably, she decided to date Beck, it would be game over.
“You’re telling me”—I tried to wrap my brain around it—“neither of her parents mentioned it? That they were so serious?”
Since Beck worked for her dad—O’Malley’s was established by Mae’s grandfather when Cedar Falls began to get developed—that seemed hard to believe. The mom worked there too, as the bookkeeper, though she’d been talking about retiring lately. Beck had a good relationship with the O’Malleys.
“I mean, I heard the guy’s name before. What the hell kind of name is Mathieu, anyway?”
Mason was trying, and failing, to keep a straight face.
“It’s the French version of Matthew,” he said dryly.
Beck’s phone buzzed. Looking at it like a lost puppy, he clicked a few buttons. Cole’s voice came through.
“Hey, buddy. I’m sorry to hear about Mae.”
“Sup, Cole?” I said.
“Hey, Cole,” Mason greeted him.
“Thanks,” Beck said. Apparently Cole just got the group text Beck had sent to us earlier.
“I guess we didn’t need that rule after all.” Beck hung his head. The guy had it bad. But that wasn’t any surprise.
“Look at it this way,” Cole said. “We took a pact for a reason. And yeah, Mason ended up being an exception. But how many of our parents ended up happily ever after?”
No one needed to answer that.
Zero.
As Beck and Cole talked, I thought of my own dad. On the outside, things appeared fine to everyone else. But as our family eroded from within thanks to his cheating and lies, not one of us got away unscathed. My brothers pretended it didn’t affect them, but I knew better.
