Page 11 of Keeping Our Secrets

Only one of them would head to Glasgow with me at the end of the summer.

There weren’t many people in the pub, which was a nice change of pace from the way it usually was. All I needed was a night of drinking before everything in our house changed. Before I could make it to the table where the guys were, Miranda, my ex-girlfriend, approached me. After the way I had ended things, I thought I wouldn’t be seeing her again for a while.

Maybe she just needed a couple days to think about it.

She had blown up when I ended things for good. After we broke up at the beginning of this year, there hadn’t been a friend with benefits agreement. However, I had a couple moments of weakness that I regretted.

The most recent one being a little over a week ago when we slept together at a party. Looking back, we never should have gone beyond friendship because no matter how hard I tried to see something more in what Miranda and had, it was never anything more than lust between us.

“Liam, I’m so happy you’re staying home this summer and spending time with all of our friends before you go back to uni,” she gushed as she pulled me into an unwelcome, tight embrace.

She even went as far as to push her breasts further into my chest to accentuate her cleavage. She was a pretty woman, but for the sake of our friendship, I knew we couldn’t go back to the way things were. I glanced over at the guys, who were conveniently staring into their drinks.

Before we dated, we had never been the type of friends to be affectionate.

So, her sudden invasion of my personal space threw me.

“I thought you went back to Glasgow?” I asked her when we arrived at our table shortly after she let me go.

“That didn’t work out. I’m here now.”

“Are you living with your parents right now?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “At least until I get another job and a new flat, or convince Rick or Darren to let me live in their spare room.”

“Not likely,” Rick told her.

“Awe, Ricky—” she pouted, jutting out her bottom lip.

“Nope,” Rick responded.

For the next hour, we talked about anything and everything. With Miranda being with us, I didn’t want to broach the subject of me getting a stepsister. The last thing I needed was for the two of them to become friends.

An hour later, when Miranda finally got up and headed to the bathroom, I asked the guys, “Do either of you have any idea what that was all about?”

Both of them smirked into their beers, which made me all that more suspicious.

“Seriously though, what’s with Miranda?”

Darren, who had been my best bud since we were kids, finally piped up. “She might have overheard us talking about your weekend fling in Paris.”

Since he was one of the guys who had joined me on my trip, it was most likely his big mouth that had clued Miranda into what I had been up to.

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “I thought we agreed that what happened in Paris stayed in Paris?” I told him.

“I think that’s Vegas.”

“Neither of us knew she was behind us. Rick told her we were coming tonight because she was back in town and missing her friends,” he told me.

“Last I heard, you guys were trying to patch up your friendship, so I didn’t see the harm,” Rick defended himself, even though there was no reason to.

“I honestly wanted to be friends again, but I didn’t expect her to smother me to death by squeezing her breasts through my chest.”

Rick guffawed.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, chuckles. This whole feckin’ mess is all your fault.”

CHAPTER 5

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