A Filthy Friend (Filthy Line #5) - Jaxson Kidman Page 0,66

because I didn’t want to sit there and cry. Of course Mia had to bring wine over. Her affinity for wine never made much sense, and since I wasn’t a wine drinker…

“You’re feeling it, Bree,” Mia said to me.

I looked up at her. “You’re sitting on the couch.”

“You’re sitting on the floor.”

“What are we doing?”

“You’re talking.”

“I’m confused.”

“I know you are,” she said. She slid off the couch to join me on the floor. “It’s okay to be confused right now, Bree. Sometimes you try to go forward so fast. It’s okay to stop and be hurt or sad or mad. You know, you can be stubborn.”

“Hey, I am mad,” I said. “This is me being mad. I’m hurt too. I’m everything you just said. This is me showing it. He fucked up. Right? You know that, right?”

Mia nodded, but I didn’t believe her. “There’s nothing I can say to what’s happening, Bree. I’m here. I’m your best friend. Not him. He was never your best friend. Or a friend at all.”

I inched away from Mia. I turned to face her. “Then what was he?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“He was the love of your life. You were the same for him. You two have been in love all these years. You both protected each other. He protected you from whatever he thought was going to hurt you and you protected him from giving up his dream. You can’t see that?”

I swallowed hard. “And that makes sense to you?”

“And it doesn’t to you?” Mia hit back hard.

I looked away.

“You’ve never had a serious relationship, Bree,” Mia said.

“You know what? I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I want to talk about the shop. The business. Growth. I want to talk about what’s going to happen in life. No more of the past, Mia.”

“I agree,” she said.

I looked at her again. “You’re a really good friend, Mia. You just let me ramble and change the subject and not fight me.”

“I’m the best,” she said. “And because I’m the best, you should listen to me. That’s all I’m going to say. Now, let’s talk business.”

“Gina is never going to give up that shop,” I said.

“No.”

“That kind of screws us over.”

“A little.”

“You have a husband, Mia. A second income. I don’t. I don’t want to be limited.”

“So don’t be,” she said. “What’s your mind thinking right now?”

I slowly smiled. “That we open our own shop.”

“Wow,” Mia said with a sigh. “And compete with my mother? That’ll make Thanksgiving interesting.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “I meant… expanding.”

“Oh, you meant opening another location?”

“Yes,” I said. “But that location is ours. Like, we work it out where Gina gets something from it, but it’s ours. We share the profits this time.”

“She’ll worry about the main store.”

“Then we put it all together and split it three ways,” I said. “Not that we would need incentive though. I would never want anything to happen to the store here in town. That place is…”

“I know,” Mia said. “I think we should get some sleep. I change my mind. I don’t want to talk about business. And you don’t want to talk about rock stars.”

I shook my head. “He’s not a rock star to me. He’s Sebastian.”

“But the guy you slept with…”

“That was Sab.”

“It’s the same guy,” Mia said. “Whether you like it or not. You’ve built it up as two different guys to justify sleeping with him. I get why. But you should own it.”

“And what he-”

“I’m just going to say it,” Mia said. “Then you can hate me a little. So what? He made a gesture to you to prove to you he cares. Did he miss the target? I don’t know. Did he? How long would it have taken you to find your birth parents? And the entire time you’d be questioning everything. Do you think maybe for one second that Sab knows more about you than you think? And he did that to keep you from driving yourself crazy? Now I get it. You didn’t want the address. You didn’t want that nagging voice in your head on what to do. But… it’s your decision. I can’t imagine what you’re processing. Your mother died and told you that you were adopted. Sab didn’t do that.”

Mia stood up and blew me a kiss.

She really was a good friend.

I didn’t like her all that much in the moment, but that was okay.

She was going to sleep in my bed.

Mia refused to sleep on the