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“All right!” Lisa yells over the music, resecuring her brown hair in a cute messy bun. “Megan. If you could haveanything... AN.NY.THING. Anything at all. For your birthday tomorrow... What would you like?”
“A trip to Paris, would be my answer,” Shaina giggles, bringing her cocktail to her lips and sipping through the tiny straw.
Megan points to her, grinning. “Not a bad a wish! Not. A. Bad.Wish!”
“But totally better if you brought all of us along, amiright?” comes from another of our friends, Jane.
“Totally,” Megan grins.
I honestly feel like we’re back a few years, celebrating Emina’s twenty-first birthday.
Megan is the oldest of our group, with Emina being the youngest. In college, we did our birthdays in our sorority house but when it was Em’s turn to turn legal, we went out and partied hard.
Tonight is literally that night all over again, with the over-exaggerated giggles and jokes.
“Bu-u-u-u-ut...” Megan draws out. “If I could haveanythingat all?” She looks down at the table, picking up her fruity mixed drink. Then, with a sly smile on her face and the rim of her glass near her mouth, she says, “I’d totally corner Josh Pine and have my filthy way with him.”
Everything in me stills.
Because Josh Pine—
“Sophia’sJosh?” Em asks beside me, leaning into the table as if she misheard our friend. The level of disbelief in her voice is hard to miss.
Megan doesn’t look at me, but instead, she moves her eyes to look at Shaina. Thanks to her natural red hair, Shaina blushes easily and looks uncomfortable.
My head is a jumble of words but I can’t get any of them out.
“What the fuck, Megan?” Thank God for Em.
The six of us may have gone to college together, but Em has been my friend since we were paired together Freshman year. She’s also my roommate. I may not see the others very often, maybe once a month or so, but Em always has my back.
“I mean...” Megan looks at me this time, shrugging her shoulder. “It’s not like you guys are exclusive.”
Jaw dropping, I shake my head. “What do you mean, we’re not exclusive? I’m fucking dating him, am I not?”
“You’re notfuckinghim,” my so-called friend says, flat out.
How in the hell would they know that? Besides...she’s mostly wrong. Josh and I have only been seeing one another for a little over two months and sure, we’ve only “done the deed” once, but he’s come to at least two of our girlfriend get-togethers as my plus-one, so they all know we’re together.
“What does that even matter? They’re together.” Em stands up for me, once again.
“Shaina fucked him first!” Jane blurts out, before pushing her shoulders up and her chin down, as if she’s a turtle trying to retreat into a shell.
“What?!” I shriek—not my finest moment—looking to the redhead who I considered to be my second best friend in the group, behind Em.
Emina grabs ahold of my forearm, not that I’m going to launch myself at Shaina.
Her face is still flushed from her earlier blush, but she has the audacity to shrug a shoulder and say with a straight face, “He told me you weren’t willing to put out.”
I can’t stop my jaw from dropping open. He told her that? All because I told him after our first time together that I needed us to pump the breaks just a little? I wasn’t usually one to give into passionate flings, but he’d been attractive, and I’d been single for a bit longer than I cared for...
Kissing lead to the bedroom faster than I could say, “Yes,” and I felt a little gross about myself the morning after.
Besides...
It wasn’t like he’d been asking and I was telling him no. It just...
Hasn’t come up again since I told him I needed us to slow down a little.
