Page 11 of Friends That Heal Us
After his laughter dies down, he turns to me and says. “It took her six months to finally figure out I don’t work there anymore.” He shakes his head and mumbles, “Jesus,” under his breath.
My brows furrow, questioning what the hell is going on. Those two must have had more secrets from each other than I knew, and it makes me question their marriage even more. But who am I to question?
“What?” I ask.
“I started my own mechanic shop a year ago.”
My eyes are wide as I stare at him in surprise. “What! You did?”
He nods. “Six months ago I stopped working at my old job and went full time for myself,” he says with pride in his voice.
“Oh, my gosh. Good for you.” I wrap my arm around his back, congratulating him.
I know what it’s like to start your own business and the rush of excitement you get to share it with someone. I can hear in his voice how it brings him so much excitement just by saying it aloud.
“Wait. Why didn’t I know about this?”
He looks at me with regret in his eyes, like he can’t say the words.
I shake my head even more confused. “How does Rya not know? Does Zay know?”
“No one knows. Except my immediate family.”
It hurts my heart to hear that. This is an exciting time for him, and he kept it from his friends. “Why didn’t we know?” I ask, dropping my arm from him. “I remember you and Zayn used to always talk about opening up your own shop.”
“We did. It was our dream to open up our own. But when I went to Zay about it, he said that it was only a dream and we could never pull it off. So, I dropped it. But when I saw you go into your own business, it got me thinking about it even more. It nagged at me for years. I went back to Zay to ask him what he thought about only me opening it up myself, and he laughed in my face.”
My mouth drops in disbelief. “I can’t believe him. What a fucking asshole.” There’s something new to find out about him and Rya almost every day. “And why doesn’t Rya know?”
“She laughed in my face, too, and then said she didn’t want to deal with a business. I knew she couldn’t run a business, so she was never part of my business plan. I just wanted her support.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yeah. She dismissed me and told me to do whatever I wanted.”
I reach for his hand and give it a squeeze. That’s so shitty of them. They weren’t the most supportive of me and my business, but they didn’t react the way they did to him. That’s a horrible feeling because even with the lack of support I got from Zay, that crushed me a lot.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have loved to support you.”
He tightens his grip on my hand. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. It’s just…you know it was hard because you were with Zay.”
“I would have smacked him on the side of the head for you.”
He turns to me with a smirk on his face and reaches for my hand. “I know you would have.”
We sit next to each other at the top of the stairs—our shoulders brushing against each other, warmth surrounding us, and our hands intertwined. Being around him has a way of easing my tension. It always has. It feels right. But beneath the calm, there’s a lingering ache. It hurts knowing he went through all of this without the support of his friends. I’m still processing how they—his best friend and his own wife—treated him with this. It makes little sense.
But what does anymore?
CHAPTER SIX
EZRA
“Isn’t that right,Vi? Ever since senior year when you confessed your feelings to me about Ez.”
The two sentences keep replaying in my head.
Did Vi have feelings for me back then?
