Page 37 of Good For Me

“Oooh.” Bodhi’s eyes light up. “That would be some serious drama. You planning on pulling a Graduate move at the wedding?”

“Jesus,” I mutter. “Why do we hang out with you again?”

“Because I’m delightful,” Bodhi says, slapping my shoulder.

The annoying thing is that he’s right. We started hanging out with Bodhi when his best friend, Leo, started dating Rose. That was only about a year ago, yet somehow it’s hard to remember a time when Bodhi wasn’t always around. When Will and Rose moved out of our old apartment at the end of the summer, Everly, Fox and I decided to rent a house. Asking Bodhi to move in had been the obvious choice.

“So what’s wrong with you?” he asks, nudging my side. “Are you desperately in love with an engaged woman?”

“Can both of you shut up? Will is going to hear you and kick my ass.” I glare between the two of them. “I don’t have a thing for Eva. Or anyone else.”

Liar, I think to myself as grey eyes flash through my mind. But I do my best not to think abouther. Ever.

“Then why haven’t you been hooking up with anyone lately?”

“That’s what I said!” Fox crows.

Bodhi shakes his head sadly. “When I moved in, I was under the impression we’d be going out to find ladies all the time. You were supposed to be my wingman, River. You were supposed to teach me the secret of being a charming manwhore.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Really? I thought you moved in because you’re madly in love with Everly and you were desperate to get closer to her.”

It’s kind of a dick thing to say—his crush on my cousin is so obvious—but Bodhi merely smiles. “Everly isn’t ready for the epic love story that the two of us are destined to experience together.” He shrugs. “But I can be patient.”

See, this is why everyone loves Bodhi—ninety percent of the time he’s completely ridiculous but then he surprises you with something totally earnest and profound.

“Does Everly know about this destiny?” Fox asks, eyebrows raised.

“Nope. But she’ll get there.”

I wonder what that would be like, to be so completely certain about the person you care about.

“There’s the face again,” Fox says, pointing. I slap his finger away.

“I don’t have a face.”

“Sounds kind of gruesome, Riv,” Will says, grinning as he appears at our table. “How you going to flirt with the entire female population of Los Angeles without a face?”

“With a body like this, girls don’t care about the face,” I shoot back. But the banter feels stale.

Will collapses onto the chair next to Bodhi. “Shit, that reminds me, Riv. I almost got my ass kicked yesterday because of you.”

My eyebrows go up. “What the hell did I do?”

He grins. “I had a new client. This girl usually sees Hannie but she’s out with strep throat so I’m taking her appointments.” He gets that slightly dreamy look on his face that he always gets when he nerds out about tattoos. “This chick’s got some of Hannie’s best work in that sleeve. I was seriously impressed when I saw it in person today. She’s working on this kind of neo-traditional style mixed with a folk-art feel and—”

“Will,” Fox cuts in. “No one knows what the hell you’re talking about. Just tell us what the girl had to do with River.”

But I have a sick feeling in my stomach that tells me I already know. A girl who claimed to know me got pissy with my cousin. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.

“Apparently you slept with her friend,” Will continues. Yup, just about what I expected. A pissed off former hook-up. “As soon as I introduced myself and she heard my last name, she started foaming at the mouth. Then she told her boyfriend who I was related to and I really thought I was going to get my ass kicked—he might have been more pissed than her.”

That gives me pause. I can see a former hook-up not being my biggest fan, but who have I ever hurt enough that her best friend would tell a boyfriend about me? I make it a strict practice to be respectful to every woman I’m with. I refuse to lead people on or play games. I’ve had some girls get angry when I didn’t want to take things further than a couple nights of fun, but I can’t think of anything I could have done to inspire quite this level of anger.

“What was her name?”

“Brie something. Holman? Yeah, Brie Holman.”

My stomach leaps to my throat. “Brie?”