Page 80 of More For Me

“So how was your day?” I ask before he even has his jacket off. I may be slightly desperate for a distraction.

“That’s what I was going to ask you.” He tosses his jacket on the booth beside him before fixing his gaze on me. “Fox said you haven’t been home since Saturday.”

I slump against the table, groaning. “Sometimes I think this friend group is just a little too entwined. Maybe we all need to meet new people.”

I expect him to roll his eyes, but instead he just continues to study me. “I’m worried about you, Bodhi. We haven’t talked since Saturday, and now I’m hearing you haven’t even been sleeping at your house.”

“I’ve been crashing at Nisha’s.”

The fact that I’ve been staying at my sister’s seems to concern him even more. “What the hell happened with Everly?”

After leaving her office that day, I hadn’t given the other guys much info. I just texted Leo to say it hadn’t turned out the way I wanted, knowing he would tell Will and River and hoping it would be enough to get them to lay off. It hadn’t been—I’ve been doing a lot of text ignoring this week.

“I told you—it didn’t work out.”

“What does that mean? Did you talk to her? Did you tell her—”

“She doesn’t feel the same way, man.” Even I can hear the despondent note in my voice.

“She told you that?” He sounds disbelieving.

I think about her standing in her office that day, refusing to meet my eyes while she lied to me about not remembering the kiss. Not remembering everything else I’d said.

“She made it pretty clear, yeah.”

“Shit.” He sounds genuinely upset. “Fuck, Bodhi. I’m sorry.”

I shrug, eyes locked on the beer I brought over with me. “It’s fine. Like you said that day, at least I know now, right? Maybe I can finally move on.”

Just saying those words hurts. But what the hell choice do I have? If she’s so freaked out about the mere idea of us together that she would lie about something like that, it pretty much tells me all I need to know.

“You really think you can do that?” Leo asks, sounding skeptical, and my temper flares.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” I snap.

“Maybe if Rose talks—”

I hold up a hand to cut him off. “No. Absolutely not. You’re not asking your wife to talk to her cousin about me.”

“Why not? She’ll want to help. Maybe she can figure out—”

“No, Leo. I feel pathetic enough as it is, okay?”

“It’s not pathetic to care about someone.”

I bark out a laugh. “I wish I could record this conversation and go back in time to show your former self what you just said.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re telling me if you had a literal time machine that’s how you’d want to use it? Not to invest in early Apple stocks or check out your ancestors—”

“Nope,” I interrupt. “I’d just want to mess with you. That would be the ultimate goal of time travel, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I hate you,” he says drily. “But I’m still fucking worried about you, man.”

I rub my forehead. “Leo, I can’t do this anymore. I’m serious.”

“What can’t you do?”

“This.” I hold out my hands. “I waited for her for years. I was so sure that I knew her better than everyone else. I was so sure that if I was just patient, she’d figure it out. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t feel like this…I can’t be this pathetic, oblivious fool anymore.”