I absorb what he’s telling me. She wants me? Like I want her. I look to the sky. This is bad. I knew it didn’t matter if it was just me who was doing all the wanting. That I can handle. I know it can never go anywhere and I know how to handle it.

Hurting Aspen was not part of the plan. But we’re in too deep now. She’s moving in. Things are going perfectly.

We walk up to their apartment to pick up two more boxes and her keyboard. Bass hits the bathroom before we head out. While I’m waiting, my phone rings and I see that Danny is calling.

“Hi, buddy,” I say, keeping my voice down until I can walk into Aspen’s room.

Standing in the doorway, I realize I’m back in Aspen’s bedroom for the first time. It looks different. There aren’t any sheets on the bed. No clothes strewn over the chair. But the smell – the smell of her is still here. I sit on the mattress and take it in.

“I caught a fish,” Danny says.

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “What? That’s great. Did your mom take you fishing?”

“We went to the zoo. They let you fish there. But you gotta put them back, so they can keep swimming.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun. Did your mom tell you I’m coming to see you tomorrow?”

I hear a thump and surmise he dropped the phone in excitement. I can’t get over how excited he always gets when I visit. I thought that would have worn off by now.

“Can we throw the football?” he asks.

“Sure. We can do whatever you want to do.”

“Can we throw a baseball?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” I say, just as I look up and see Bass walking past Aspen’s doorway.

He stops and puts his hands up on the door jam, looking at me accusingly.

“How much of that did you hear?” I ask.

“Enough to know you’re going somewhere with someone tomorrow and that you’ve promised to do whatever she wants you to do.” His face turns red in anger. “What the fuck are you up to, Mills?”

“It’s not like that,” I say.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately. How can you expect Aspen to hold up her end of the contract when you aren’t upholding yours?”

“I’m upholding the contract. I’m not seeing anyone. That wasn’t even a woman on the phone.”

“You’re lying,” he says.

“I’m not, but I don’t have to answer to you, Briggs.”

“The hell you don’t if has to do with hurting my best friend.”

“You mean the woman you love.”

When he doesn’t respond, I tell him, “What I’m doing tomorrow will not hurt her, or anyone. I assure you. Just leave it alone.”

“I don’t trust you.” He shakes his head and turns to walk away. But then he spins around. “You have to tell her you don’t want her. You have to tell her every day and make her hear it. It’s the only way you’ll keep her from getting hurt when this whole thing ends.”

I’ve never been a guy to talk about my feelings with other guys. But Bass loves her. He loves her in every way and he’s just looking out for her. I walk back into the living room and sit on his couch.

“What if I said I’d be lying if I told her that?”

He closes his eyes briefly and sighs. He’s the one I’m hurting now.

He walks over and sits across from me. “Don’t mess with me, Sawyer. Tell it to me straight. Do you want her?”

I laugh, because it’s really all I can do at the irony of it. “I do,” I admit. “But I can’t have her.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I can’t have her or anyone. Not ever. I won’t ever have a girlfriend – not a real one anyway.”

“Why not?”

I shake my head. “I just can’t.”

“A lot of guys think that. You’re what, twenty-five, twenty-six? Of course you’re not ready to settle down. No one ever is until they find that one person. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want Aspen to be that one person, because I know based on your past that it can’t last. But to say you never want a girlfriend is a bit obtuse, don’t you think?”

“I’m not being obtuse. When I say I will never have a girlfriend, I mean it.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Aspen mentioned a while back that she thought you might be a sex addict – are you?”

I belt out a thunderous laugh. “I like sex a lot, I’m not gonna lie. But I’m no addict. I’ve gone over a month, I’d think that would prove it.”

“Then what? Did you lose someone? Are you scared?”

I shake my head because I’m so over this conversation. I’m sorry I even brought it up. “I just know it can never happen, not without someone getting hurt.”

“So you shouldn’t even try?” he asks. Then he slaps his hand on his thigh. “Look at me, now you’ve got me arguing for you to be with her. Shit. That’s not what I’m doing and that’s not what I want. But I’m just saying you shouldn’t let one bad relationship, or whatever it was, determine your entire future.”

I stand up and pick up the keyboard. “You don’t know anything about it, Briggs, so just shut the fuck up and get the rest of her boxes.”

Before I walk out the door, I glance back at Aspen’s old bedroom. The bedroom where we had sex. Where she was just another one-night-stand. Where I had the best sex of my life. Where I had no idea who she was or what we would become.

Then I stare at the couch. The couch where I kissed her last weekend. The couch where I realized just how true that toast at graduation really was.

Then I walk out the door knowing how totally fucked I am.

Chapter Twenty-four

Aspen

My fingers are sore, but I don’t care. They continue pounding out piece after piece. I play everything I can from memory, savoring how my fingertips flow over the black and white keys.

It’s been weeks since I played on a piano this nice. I didn’t know how much I would miss it. My keyboard is no substitute for the real thing. I still can’t believe he bought a piano. For me. He bought a piano for me even after all the money he’s depositing into my account. Even knowing I don’t have to pay my own rent again until this is over.

Why would he do that?

Something moves in my periphery and I turn to see what it is.

“Don’t stop playing because of me,” Sawyer says, walking by with a bag of what smells like take-out food.

My stomach grumbles. “What time is it?”

“After seven,” he says.

“Seven?”

I’ve been playing for four hours. I look down at my screaming fingers and wrists that are about ready to fall off the ends of my arms. I fist and release my hands.

“Come on, I have enough for two,” he says, putting the food on the table before he grabs a few beers from the fridge.

I walk into the kitchen and open the cabinet he had designated as mine. I pull out my prescription bottle with my muscle relaxants.

Sawyer eyes my movements and then he looks at the beers in his hands. “Okay, then, no beer for you.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you can’t drink when you take that shit,” he says, looking guilty.

I reach for a beer. “One isn’t going to kill me. And, oh my God, what food did you get? It smells divine.”

He pulls out several Styrofoam containers. “It’s from Mitchells. You know Mason Lawrence’s wife, Piper? Her family owns a few restaurants. Their food is good. But I didn’t know what you’d like, so I ordered three of my favorites and I figured I’d let you choose.”

I smile, knowing that he was thinking of me. We never discussed how this was going to work. Would we eat together? Prepare meals? I guess I’d assumed we would each do our own thing when people aren’t watching.

I open the three containers, choosing the pulled pork entrée.

“Good choice,” he says.

“I’m sorry, did you want this one?”

He takes a bite of lasagna and says around his food, “I told you, I like all of them.” Then he pushes his container towards me. “Here, you have to try this one.”

We spend the next half hour sipping beer and sharing the three meals. It feels so … normal.

“So, Brooke and Bass seem to be getting along well,” he says.

I wrinkle my nose. “Yeah, maybe a little too well.”

I don’t bother telling him that Bass declared his love for me last weekend. And that right after, when I didn’t return the gesture, he said he was moving in with Brooke. And then all the whispering and hand-holding and touching they did yesterday. It just seems too fast.

“Jealous?” he asks.

I snort through my nose. “Hardly. I love Bass like a brother. I’ve told you that before. I just don’t want him jumping into anything he’s not ready for.”

“He’s a grown man, Aspen. And Brooke is a great girl from what I’ve seen. I think they make a good couple. Don’t you?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“We should have them over for dinner,” he says.

I cock my head, wondering why he would bother. “Why?” I ask. “Bass knows about us, and it doesn’t do you any good to put on a show in front of Brooke.”

Then I wonder if he’s scared to be alone with me. Every time we’re together, things seem electrified. The tension between us is palpable. Maybe he feels it, too. Maybe he knows I’m into him and doesn’t want to be alone with me more than necessary.

“Just trying to be friendly,” he says. “But if you don’t want to—”

“No. I do. It would be nice. I could cook.”

“You cook?” he asks with a raised brow.

“Don’t look so surprised, Tom Sawyer. I happen to be a very good cook.”