Page 12 of I Can't Help It

She literally growls at me, and I’d probably be scared if she didn’t have such a baby face. “Okay then, pretend that I’m not married to Harvey. Instead, I’m dating Wyatt. How do you feel about this?”

“Fine.” I turn the TV on and give her a saucy look. “I’m fine as wine because I don’t want to date Wyatt again, I want to date Luke.”

“You’re going to make me gray early!” she wails, pointing to her completely auburn hair. “You can’t date Luke, Ava! You just can’t.”

I scowl at that. “Three days ago, you stalked his profile to get a picture of him and then you used one of those weird online generators to see what our babies would look like!”

“It was a moment of weakness,” she verbally waves me off. “But never again! You need to forget about Luke. Use this work thing to build immunity toward him!”

Ew. I don’t want to do that. I want to use this “work thing” to finallyyyy find out if Luke is interested in me. That way I can know once and for all.

And if he’s not interested, I’ll move on.

I’ll try to move on.

I’ll be disappointed and embarrassed, but I’ll eventually move on.

Maybe.

“Do you hear me, Ava? IMMUNITY.”

I give her my best ‘I’m totally innocent smile,’ even though she won’t fall for it. “I hear you.”

“You’re going to completely disregard everything I just said, aren’t you?”

“You know me so well, Sloane.”

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” she says with a loud groan. “I have no choice when it comes to being an expert on you.”

Ten years of friendship will do that.

“Okay. I have a proposition.” She proceeds to clear her throat to emphasize whatever she’s about to say. “I will support the idea of using this ‘work thing’ to find out if Luke is interested—BUT—if it turns out he’s not interested, you will give one of Harvey’s friends a chance instead. That sounds fair, right?”

While I don’t want to focus on the possibility of having unrequited feelings for Luke, I know Sloane means well. And I also know she wouldn’t set me up with a loser, mostly because I would kick her butt.

So, I agree to the proposition.

“Fine. If Luke isn’t interested, I promise to go out with one of Harvey’s friends.”

“Perfect! Now what movie should we watch? I vote for a ’90s romcom!”

She starts rattling off some different names as I open MoreFlix on the TV.

Too bad there isn’t a ’90s romcom about falling for your ex’s best friend, because that would really come in handy right now…

* * *

The last time I was this anxious about texting a guy was during my freshman year of high school. Chris Raymond was the “cool guy” at school; and when he gave me his number, I didn’t want to ruin my chances of going out with him by texting something stupid.

In an unexpected turn of events, Chris was the one who messed up BECAUSE HE ALREADY HAD A FREAKING GIRLFRIEND. Yeah, he was dating Ashley Polk. Such a nice surprise. I cried for three hours straight after I found out.

But anyway, I’m here at home, staring at my phone with a new text conversation open so I can finally message Luke. I have no idea what I should say though.

Should I send something like: Hey, it’s Ava—

No. I hate it already.

Maybe I’ll just send the address with a few emojis? And a little message that says: Here’s my address!

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