He shoved his phone into his back pocket and turned around, his cool, collected expression making me feel like I was a complete stranger. Like the entire day hadn’t happened.

“Ready to hit the road? I don’t know if I’m good to drive, but I’ll walk you home.” His jade eyes were hard as diamonds, and there was not even a hint of the warmth that swam in them a second ago.

“Was that your mom?”

I didn’t think I’d ever heard anyone talking to their mother so impersonally. As someone who grew up without a mother, I always watched the interactions my friends had with theirs carefully. The bickering, the exasperation, the vein of love running between them in an invisible cord.

The closeness varied, but there was always this underlying, built-in familiarity that wasn’t there between West and his mother.

“Yeah.” He helped me clean up the floor, going about everything quickly and efficiently, avoiding my gaze. Whatever that phone call had meant, it had thrown him off-kilter. “My friends know better than to try to celebrate my birthday, but my mother still tries.”

Why didn’t he celebrate his birthdays?

And why had he chosen to share this one with me?

I knew I wasn’t going to get any answers. Not tonight.

I rubbed his arm with a smile. “Wanna say hi to Grams?”

“Are you kidding?” He scoffed. “Only reason I hang out with your sorry ass is to get close with Mrs. S.”

West

And the Idiot of the Decade Award goes to …

Me.

It was going straight to my fucking open arms.

Kissing Texas was by far the craziest thing I’d done since moving to … well, Texas.

She’d been drunk enough to let it happen, and I was dumb enough to piss all over my rules.

My unlikely savior was my mother. The second I’d heard my phone ringing, I remembered.

Remembered why I was here.

Why I’d never go back to Maine.

Why I didn’t do girlfriends or serious relationships or had a plan for the future.

East was right—I liked Grace Shaw, and if I didn’t keep my hands to myself, I was about to drag both of us into a clusterfuck she didn’t deserve and I had no idea how to get out of.

No promises, no disappointments.

That was my motto in life.

Grace and I walked side by side. She was still buzzed, bouncing around and talking animatedly. She was cute with her little pink cap and blonde hair. A part of me couldn’t wait for the moment she’d see past her own insecurities and open up. Guys would start asking her out the minute she stopped giving them the don’t-get-close signals. Another part of me wanted to skin each and every one of those motherfuckers and make drum kits for orphans out of their flesh. They didn’t deserve her. I didn’t know who ‘they’ were per se. Just faceless, hopefully dick-less dudes.

“…said she might not let me pass this semester. Which is actually frightening. But I can’t go onstage. I know there’s some good special effects makeup, but what’s the point in that? Everyone would be trying to drill a hole through my makeup with their eyes to see my new face. The play would take the backseat, and my freaky new face would be the talk of town. No, I can’t go onstage. Not without the ball cap. Which, let’s admit it, isn’t really an option,” I heard Grace explaining in the background, and fuck, I’d blanked out again, this time thinking about what it’d have been like to finish that kiss. To have more than the quick peck we’d managed to slip through before I got a phone call.

“Who?” I asked as we reached her doorstep.

“Professor McGraw.” She stopped by the low gate leading to her house. “You wandered off, didn’t you?” She reached to stroke my hair to one side, trying to make it resemble something neat. I’d only cut it every few months, and even that only happened when East literally sat my ass down and put scissors to it.

I groaned, looking away. Girls touched me, constantly. Giving me head, kissing me, groping me, riding me. But it’d been a hot minute since anyone had touched me like that. With care instead of lust. No one since Whitley had, anyway.

The door swung open and an older woman breezed out, swinging her purse over her shoulder. “Honey pie, I saw the porch lights turning on. I left you some food in the microwave, if the old bat didn’t get to it yet. Sorry I don’t have time to wait till you take your shower. Pete’s coming down with somethin’. No time to piddle. Call if you need me.”

“Thanks, Mar.” Texas reached on her toes to hug the woman. We both walked up to her porch. Marla clapped my shoulder on her way to her car in hello.

“Treat her nicely, boy, or I’ll be sure to acquaint you with my shotgun.”

Fucking Texas.

“I’ll entertain Mrs. S while you get a shower,” I offered Grace as Marla took off in her Dodge. The shotgun remark passed over her head like Marla had offered me tea.

“Oh, it’s fine. Really.” She blushed under her makeup.

“That’s a statement, not an offer. Move it.” I pressed a hand against her lower back, close enough to her ass to get my mind rolling. My dick strained inside my jeans, and I couldn’t wait to get home and rub one out.

Texas bolted upstairs to the shower, and I strolled into the living room, making myself at home. It looked old, but the foundation around it was pretty new, which told me all I needed to know. There was a fire here, and parts of the house were remodeled.

Savannah was sitting on a recliner in front of the TV, knitting something that looked like a never-ending scarf. Her eyes were blank, her mouth pressed into a thin line of discontent.

I sat in front of her. “Hey, Mrs. Shaw. Remember me?”

She looked up from her twelve-foot scarf, above the rim of her glasses, then dropped her gaze back to her knitting.

“Of course I do,” she said, her tense expression relaxing. “You’re my husband, Freddie.”

Ten minutes later, Texas was out of the shower, and I was one hundred percent sure her grandmother had dementia. Mrs. S spent the time I’d been watching over her asking me about people I didn’t know and apparently worked with, recited entire conversations we hadn’t had, and treated me like I was her dead husband. This wasn’t an act. She had no clue who I was.

Grace came down the stairs, taking them two at a time, wearing an oversized, long-sleeved shirt she used as pajamas. Her legs were bare, and my eyes licked them greedily. Her legs were perfect. Tan and long and athletic. I could easily visualize them wrapped around my waist.

But I didn’t.

Because we were JUST FUCKING FRIENDS, as I kept forgetting. Maybe I needed to stick a Post-It note to the insides of my eyelids. Just and Friends.

My pupils finally slid up to the rest of her. She was wearing the ball cap, and her face was full of freshly applied makeup.

We playing it like that, huh, Tex?

I stood up.

“Thanks so much for doin’ this. I really appreciate it.” Grace threw her arms around me when she reached the landing, giving me a squeeze. Her tits pressed against my pecs. She wasn’t wearing a bra. West Junior made a mental note to do her more solids if she repaid us in hugs. She led me back to the front door, her polite way to tell me to get the fuck out.