Here With You (A Laurel Heights Novel) - By Kate Perry Page 0,49

may not know anything about fashion, but I can tell when something's good, and yours are amazing. It's up your alley, too. You love romance. But you aren't going to go for it. You're going to let the real thing pass you by, because you're scared to do it."

"I am not," she said tightly, even as part of her knew he was right.

He tugged his T-shirt over his head. "You're scared to go for that, and you're scared to go for us. Because whatever you think this is about, it's only about the fact that you aren't willing to give us a chance."

She yanked her robe off the hook on her door. "I knew nothing good would could come from this fling."

He paused, staring at her. The hurt in his eyes stung her heart. "See, Nicole, that's where we're different. This was never a fling to me. This was as real as it gets. To me, this was love."

She froze, barely able to breathe.

He lifted the necklace from his neck and set it on her bedside table. Without a word he strode from her room.

She watched him leave, and then she stared at the arrowhead she'd given him so long ago and knew she'd lost her best friend forever.

Chapter Twenty-one

The first thing Nicole thought when she opened her eyes in the morning was that something was wrong.

It could have been because of her queasy stomach or throbbing head. She slowly eased her feet onto the floor, holding her forehead to keep her brains from sloshing around.

Then it all came back to her. The fantastic sex. The rumors of Grif's engagement. The argument. Grif leaving, and the subsequent night of debauchery Susan had insisted on, involving way too much wine.

Nicole looked at the bedside table. The arrowhead she'd given him lay there. Any vague hope she'd had that last night was all a dream vanished in a poof.

But maybe he'd come back. She slipped it over her head and stumbled out of her room to the living room.

It was pristine. No one sleeping on the couch, no pile of random hats and sunglasses, no guitar tucked in the corner.

He was gone.

She deflated.

Susan walked out of the kitchen, her hand outstretched with a steaming cup. "You look like how I feel. Why did I think all that wine was a good idea?"

"He's really gone," Nicole said out loud, taking the cup her roommate pushed into her hands. She absently sipped the coffee, not caring when her tongue burned.

"You wanted him gone, remember?" Susan curled into a corner of the couch, her feet tucked under her. "Last night, you were all 'To hell with him and his supermodel slut!'"

She winced. "Are you sure I said that?"

"Yep." Susan smiled faintly, cuddling her own mug to her chest. "You were on a roll. If he were here, I think you'd have punched him in the face."

"He proposed to her." She sank onto the couch and dropped her head back as all the emotions came back to her.

"I don't know if I should be saying this now, but maybe you're overreacting about the whole engagement thing."

"No, I'm not." She managed enough energy to glare at her roommate. "You don't propose to someone randomly, not unless you think you want to be with them forever."

"Not everyone has the same view of marriage as you do."

"Grif does. We talked about it." She dropped her head in her hands. "He asked me to go with him."

"What?" Susan gaped. "You never mentioned that."

"Because of course I wasn't going to go. But that's not the point."

"What's the point?"

"He didn't want to marry me. He just asked me to tag along with him, since I wasn't doing anything important here anyway."

"He said that?" Susan asked, sounding skeptical.

"Pretty much."

"Are you sure?"

She frowned at her roommate. "Whose side are you on?"

"Yours, which is why I'm going to say this." Susan pointed at her. "You like him, the kind of like that leads to the happy ever after you've always dreamed of. And whatever he said or has done, he likes you the same way. If you let him go, you'll regret it."

"But he doesn't—"

"Then make him." Throwing her arms in the air, Susan stood up. "Go after him. Tell him he's being an idiot. Sometimes the hero needs to be saved, Nicole."

She blinked at her roommate. "Beauty saved the beast."

"Exactly. So do it."

Nicole watched Susan stride out of the room, still mumbling to herself. She stayed on the couch, thinking about what her roommate