Page 152 of My Heart Still Beats
“I need you to come to dinner with us tonight.”
Skye bites her lip. “I’m so sorry, Tess. I made plans with Braden.”
I sigh.
“I’m sorry,” she says again.
I cross my legs and look away. “I’m always going to play second fiddle to him, aren’t I?”
“No, but I wouldn’t break plans with you if he asked me to, either.”
I gulp down the rest of the water in my bottle. I’m not being fair, and I know it. “You’re right. You have better things to do than be my babysitter.”
“Maybe…” Skye scratches her chin.
“Maybe what?”
“I could check with Braden. Maybe we could join you guys for dinner and then—”
I hold up my hand, waving steam in my face. “No. Don’t worry about it. I just…”
“What?”
“If I don’t have a chaperone I’ll end up in his bed.”
“Be your own chaperone.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s such a Skye thing to say.”
“And needing a chaperone is a Tessa thing. Black and white. If you don’t have someone else there, you’ll sleep with him. There’s no middle ground.” Skye shakes her head. “You’re so much like Braden sometimes.”
Skye has told me this countless times—that I see everything in black and white. No middle ground. Because I’m a mathematician, all I see is right and wrong. “I am?”
“Yeah. He says he doesn’t accept anything as absolute, but in his way, he does.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just has his own ideas, and nothing will sway him.”
“He sounds more like you than like me,” Tessa says.
“He’s a lot like me in other ways. I’ll grant you that. But that’s not even my point.” She grabs my hand. “My point is you don’t need a chaperone. Youcancontrol yourself.”
“Yeah. You’re right. It would just make things easier.”
“Life isn’t always easy.”
“Fuck,” I say. “You sure got that right.”
…
My eyes shoot open.
That last date with Garrett. The date that led to…
How, after my conversation with Skye, I was sure I could control myself…and I would have, if he hadn’t drugged me.
In that same conversation, Skye asked if I wanted to meet Ben.
