Page 57 of Go Back to December
That cocky smile snaps me back to reality, and awareness of the erratic beat of my heart.
Baz’s smile widens. He thinks he’s distracted me.
“Spill the tea on Dooley. It may help me understand everything else,” I insist. “After everything today, you owe me.”
While he finishes eating, he evaluates me and the question carefully, and after drawing a sip of wine, he finally says, “Dooley and I grew up together. The summer we were eleven, we went to overnight soccer camp.”
I lean forward in my chair. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” Baz wags his head furiously. “Snakes. On. A. Cot.”
My jaw drops. “Real ones?”
He throws me a withering look, and I let out a whoop. “Did you break up because of it?”
“We went to different schools, so we probably wouldn’t have stayed that close. I didn’t see him much until I was interning in the city the summer before my final year in college. He was at a party with this bunch of finance-bro douchebags.”
“Which one of you got annihilated?”
He scoffs. Like I’m a moron for asking. Especially after what happened at the club.
“You were worried about him.”
Baz dismisses this truth with a wave. “I took him back to the place I was subletting. Force-fed him a bunch of water and some food. He passed out on the couch.”
Like a kid waiting for Cinderella to slip on that shoe, I clasp my hands and whisper, “What happened?”
“He peed the bed.”
“Not all that surprising.”
“It was my bed.”
“Were you—”
“In it at the time? Yes. Yes, I was.”
I howl so hard tears prick my eyes. They fall harder when I notice Baz isn’t smiling.
“Okay.” I choke down some water to control myself. “Justifiable decision on your part not to have him sleep here. How in the world did you ever become friends again?”
“The next time we met up was the first day we joined Blackhart & Steele. Being a first-year associate is like being a Hunger Games tribute.”
“Lord of the Flies in Armani.”
Baz laughs, a low rumble. “Exactly.”
His uninhibited smile make my throat catch. “But you both survived.”
“Dooley and I were the biggest bastards in the entire recruit class. Neither of us wanted the other on his shit list. So that first day, I proposed an alliance. He accepted. We’ve had each other’s blind side ever since.”
“Enemies to besties.”
“We were never enemies.”
“But you are besties.”
He makes a face.
