“Well, there’s never any danger of meeting someone if you work from home, or at a bar where you’re sure to never meet anyone you like.”
She looks up at me, and her blue eyes seem to glow in the darkening room. “What about you? When was the last time you had someone you’d consider a girlfriend?”
“Freshman year.”
She gives me an incredulous look. “That’s four years ago.”
“I know. But we were together for a while before then.” I sit at the edge of my bed next to her and bend, resting my elbows on my thighs. I’m still only in my towel.
“Luke?”
I can feel her eyes on my face, and turn to look over at her. Just by her expression I know she’s putting two and two together. “Yeah?”
“How exactly do you know Mia?”
I smile but I don’t feel it move past the twist of my lips. “She’s my ex.”
“Oh.” Her eyes fall closed. “Oh. I’ve heard mention in passing of the boyfriend before Ansel. You were together for a long time.”
“Our first kiss was when we were twelve.”
“And your last?” she asks.
My heart hurts with a phantom limb pain, the way it always does when I remember: we both knew it was the last kiss. “Nineteen.”
London stands, opening her eyes, wiping her hands down her sides, and looking around as if searching for something. “I feel a little weird about this all of a sudden.”
I follow her when she walks into the bathroom, picking up her pile of discarded clothes. “God, why?” I ask. “Mia certainly doesn’t care.”
“She doesn’t know about this,” she says, motioning between us. “I mean, Mia and I aren’t, like, best friends or anything, but we are friends and apparently I’ve been banging her ex.”
“We haven’t really ‘been banging.’ You’ve banged me twice and actually, I’ve done most of the work. You can claim thirteen percent responsibility and then you can shirk that, if you want, since you didn’t know I was her ex.”
She doesn’t even crack a smile at this as she walks out of the bedroom to the kitchen, slipping on her flip-flops. “Still. Ugh.”
I’ve hit pause on the growing interest inside me, shut off any real reaction to this. I like London but she’s got some weird chick force field around her I’m not even going to pretend to understand, and this Mia thing seems to make it stronger.
“Well, regardless, today was nice,” I tell her quietly.
She nods but won’t look at me. “It was.”
I know she won’t use it but I can’t help giving her my number. Tearing the back off an envelope on the counter, I write it down and slide it across to her. “In case you ever want another complimentary shampoo.”
She stares at it before taking the pen from me, tearing off another piece, and writing something down. With a dry laugh, she slides it to me, grabs her keys, and heads to the front door.
In case of emergency.
Logan: 619-555-0127
After I hear her car pull away from the curb, I dial the number and laugh in spite of myself when a deep male voice answers the call: “Fred’s Bar, Fred speaking.”
Chapter FIVE
London
THE STAIRS LEADING down the front of Luke’s little La Jolla house seem a lot longer than they did going up. It’s like I can’t move fast enough and end up taking them two at a time, skipping the last one entirely and landing a little too hard on the pavement at the bottom.
Like last time, my legs are less than steady as I cross the yard, my muscles shaky and the words What the hell am I doing? playing on a loop inside my head.
How on earth does someone like Luke hook up with me, get car head the next night, and then show up at my favorite Mexican place looking completely gorgeous and being totally funny and interesting and charm his way right into my pants?
Again?
My car is parked at the curb and I look around at the other houses as I unlock the door and climb inside, suddenly conscious of the fact that I’m wearing different clothes than when I went in—Luke’s clothes—that my hair is still damp and drying in a tangled mess. That I just left a booty call.
I said I wasn’t going to do this again, and yet here I am, doing the walk of shame like it’s my job, after having sex so good I doubt I could walk without a limp if I tried. No wonder his phone is always blowing up.
I check my mirrors and pull out into traffic, and try not to replay exactly how good it was. I try not to dwell on the fact that he drives his sister and grandmother around on the weekends, that he can name the stores they shop in, and that every time I’ve been around him, he’s actually really nice. I’m definitely not thinking about the way I left him standing in his kitchen with only a blue towel tucked low on his hips, or that I can still smell his soap on my skin.
“Complimentary shampoo,” I mumble, checking my mirror again before switching lanes. “What a jerk.”
And the closer I get to home, the more the thing with Mia starts to bother me. I knew she’d had a boyfriend for a long time, but we never talk about him. It’s not an omission for a reason; it’s just not part of her day-to-day reality anymore. I’m not sure I’d ever heard his name. If I had, it was really forgettable, apparently.
At the bar he’d said they grew up together, not that they were together for seven fucking years. It’s not really common for people our age to have someone they were with for seven years—it’s huge. He knew Mia and I are acquaintances, at least, and didn’t even think to mention it?
But to be fair . . . I haven’t exactly been forthcoming during the get-to-know-you game, so he’d have zero way of knowing it would even be a thing, or that he should talk to me about any of his past relationships. I certainly haven’t. We hooked up, that’s it.
Still. I asked, and he deflected with an outright lie. And I am friends with Mia. Not best friends or as close as I was with Ruby before she moved to England, or even Lola and Harlow, but friends nonetheless. There are a few cardinal rules every girl should live by: always tell another girl when she has something in her teeth or her nose, or when her dress is tucked into her panty hose. Always provide tampons to a fellow female in need and, by extension, alert them of Shark Week accidents. If another female is drunk and needs a friend, help her.
And never, ever go after a friend’s ex.
Basic Girl Code.
I know Mia is happy and she and Ansel are the picture of wedded bliss, but I need to call her. Today. Before I lose my nerve.
Lola’s on her way out when I step into the loft, and I feel a shiver of guilt make its way up my spine.
“Hey, you,” she says, checking her wallet before dropping it in her purse.
“Hey.” I slide the door closed behind me, drop my keys on the table, and lean against the wall. “How was L.A.—wait, are you leaving again?”
“I have this . . . thing,” she says, “back up there. Oliver’s driving with me because I will cry the entire drive if I have to do it alone again.”
At the sound of his name, Oliver rounds the corner, smiling when he sees me.
“London Bridge,” he says, and bumps my shoulder as he passes. “I gave out one of your cards today. A regular who runs a couple breweries asked who did my site, and I told him about you.”
“Thanks, Olls,” I say.