Page 34 of Filthy Beautiful
She knew this.
After I’d dropped her at her apartment, I met up with friends for dinner. Then a couple of drinks with my buddy-slash-bodyguard, Lucas… and watched the clock tick.
I figured by two in the morning, the coast would be clear.
I pulled the shopping bags out of my car, and as I made my way around the house and across the backyard to the poolhouse, I looked up at Courteney’s window. The curtain was closed, but her light was on.
I pictured her lying on her bed, the way she was the other day when I burst into her room…
And I wondered if her door was locked.
Jesus, something was wrong with my head.
I dropped my bags in the poolhouse and hit the shower.
Trey was right. Uncomfortably direct about it, but right.
Any sane man knew you didn’t screw around with someone you couldn’t just brush off if it didn’t work out. That was in the Single Dude’s Handbook, right next to the page about never messing around with your best friend’s little sister behind his back.
And at thirty years old—almost thirty-one—you definitely didn’t want to be lusting after an eighteen-year-old.
What good could come of that?
Hot sex, maybe. Then you brushed it off before she got clingy, right?
But there would be no casual sex for me and Courteney Clarke.
That possibility would never be on the table.
So why was I even thinking about it?
Looking at her that way…?
And why was it bugging me so much that she hated me?
Yup. That was a fact. I fucking hated it that she couldn’t stand me anymore.
You made it this way.
You scared her, good—and that’s how it should be.
You’re here for Cary.
I told myself to take an example from Trey’s playbook. The guy might bust my balls about it, but no way he’d touch Courteney, even if he wanted to, if she washisbest friend’s little sister.
No way he’d pull that shit I’d pulled on her in my car three weeks ago.
He’d probably even find some way to talk to her about what happened—about Joseph Fetterman’s death.
Be there for her.
Listen. Support.
Look out for her when Cary couldn’t.
Because that’s what best friends did, right? They stayed fucking trustworthy. They had your back.
They didn’t fantasize about boning your baby sister behind your back.
