Page 66 of Something Spontaneous

He gives me a little wink before grinning smugly back at his sister.

Sisi tosses her head back in exasperation. “God, I forgot that you two were insufferable when you didn’t hate each other. I guess sleeping together took care of that.”

Sly’s eyes widen in alarm, and he looks between me and his sister.

“Yeah,” I say, dragging out the word. “I know she figured it out. Next time, be more careful with your laundry.”

He starts to say something before his sister cuts him off.

“Yeah, panties in the diner, Sly. Again, not cool.” Sisi scolds her brother, and I laugh because I can just picture how awkward that situation had to be for him.

It’s awkward for me too—because again, my aforementioned panties—but clearly not as much as it is for him.

“Fuck my life. I hate this conversation,” Sly groans, dropping his head. “Make it stop.”

“Look, I don’t care what you two do,” Sisi says, pulling our collective attention to her. “Just do a better job of keeping the details to yourselves, okay?”

“You don’t care?” Sly asks from the pool, paddling away from us now. “I don’t know who’s worse at meddling, you or Dad.”

“Eddie’s worse,” I chime in. “So much worse.”

The siblings both laugh, and for a second, this feels almost natural—the way it did when we were growing up together.

“Yeah,” Sly grumbles. “I still can’t believe he knew you were going to show up at the garage in the middle of the night after ten years away and thought Hey, this would be funny. I should keep that detail to myself.”

I look over just as he dunks his head under the water before reemerging. The way beads of water run down his forehead reminds me of the way sweat ran through his brows when he was⁠—

“Did I hear someone mention me?” A deep, raspy voice cuts across the patio.

We all look up as the screen door from the back of the house slams shut behind Eddie Sterling.

I clutch my chest. “Holy shit, Eddie! You scared me!”

Eddie chuckles before Sly mutters to himself, “Those bells can’t get here soon enough.”

I give him a curious look, and he rolls his eyes.

“I’ll tell you later,” he mouths.

The thought of being alone with him later—to tell me frankly whatever he wants to tell me—makes me both anxious and excited. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that. That’s also what has me realizing that maybe I should focus on creating some distance between us again. I thought I was strong enough to keep things purely physical between us, but I might have overestimated myself.

One look at him tells me exactly that.

CHAPTER 28

SLY

She Still Doesn’t Know

I always loved watching the sunset. It’s exactly how I thought I’d be spending my night—clearing my head, watching the sunset from my parents’ pool, in peace.

Instead, I feel like I’m living in a twilight zone reunion of my childhood because the love of my life is sitting at the patio table with my dad and sister. For the last half hour, they’ve been chatting away over margaritas that I’ve finally accepted are perfect—just like Josie Hare.

She’s still effortlessly charming and funny, making everyone around her relax. I’ve mostly kept to myself tonight, staying in the pool, enjoying what will likely be one of my last swims of the year, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed everything about her. From the way she didn’t shy away from my dad’s questions about her parents—which even I haven’t had the balls to ask her about—to the way she listened to my sister’s story about her shitbag fiancé who left her at the altar this summer—of course she was ready to ride at dawn to avenge Sisi’s honor.

Everything about her reminds me why I loved her, and if I’m finally being honest with myself, never stopped loving her.

She was always the one who somehow gave no shits about what people thought about her, while simultaneously making everyone around her feel loved and cared for—including the shy, awkward boy that never liked talking or being social. I might still be like that, but having her in my life certainly made me better than if I had never fallen in love with the wild child, redheaded girl next door.