weird, forbidden almost, sitting across from Bryan inside a diner I’d never been in before, just the two of us. The waitress brought us coffee and took our order. When she left, we went completely silent, avoiding direct eye contact. Apparently, it felt a little awkward to Bryan too.
While I folded and refolded an empty sugar packet, Bryan stretched his sculpted, tatted arms over the back of the vinyl seat on his side of the booth and turned his head to stare out the window. I stared at him.
“I hope you know I tried to talk some sense into him last night,” he said softly to the window before turning his head to look at me.
“War, you mean,” I said, thunderstruck by the unguardedness within his eyes.
Lowering his arms, Bryan nodded, and glossy layers of his hair drifted down to shadow his serious brow.
“I didn’t expect you to intervene for me.” I shook myself out of the alternate reality I’d stalled in since he’d admitted to thinking about kissing me.
“You’re both my friends. I had to.” Shifting in his seat, he looked uncomfortable.
“War is your friend. I’m not sure what I am to you anymore.” Tired, I gave him my feelings unfiltered when I probably should have continued suppressing them.
Bryan winced. “Have I botched it up between us that badly?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to put myself in his shoes, but I didn’t have a similar frame of reference. I only had two best friends that I’d ever felt free to be totally unguarded with—my brother, and at one time, the handsome guy sitting across the table from me. “Why don’t you tell me how you think things are between us?”
“I’m not sure.” Bryan’s gaze sharpened. “But I know you’re the only person I ever felt like I could really talk to.”
“But what about War?” I asked.
“War talks. He doesn’t listen.”
“And all those other girls—”
“We don’t do a lot of talking,” he said quickly. “Not about anything that matters.”
“I can see where talking might be a problem.” Just sitting across from him, I found it difficult to concentrate. I leaned back in my seat, frowning.
Bryan was never with any girl very long, never the same one twice, except off and on again with Missy Rivera. I didn’t know what it was about her that was different, but I knew she’d been with War and Bryan.
I didn’t like her.
“So many times,” he said, “I was tempted to pick up the phone and talk to you like I used to.”
“You have my number.” Confused, I squinted at him.
“Let me rephrase that.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t call you. It wouldn’t have been right. Not when you were with him. Not when most of the stuff I wanted to talk about involves him, you, and the group.”
“Oh.” My eyes rounded. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“But now . . .” He let that hang, giving me a meaningful look.
“With War and me broken up, it’s different.”
Bryan nodded. He was unguarded, now that the wall that had stood between us was gone. Looking into his warm familiar eyes without it there, I suddenly didn’t feel so alone or quite so sad.
“Well then.” I leaned forward, put my elbows on the table, and propped my chin in my hands. “We have a lot to catch up on. So, start talking.”
“About what?” he asked.
“Everything I missed that you wished you’d shared. Everything you thought about asking me but didn’t.”
“That’s a lot of stuff, and pretty open-ended.” His lips curved upward.
“Start with the band, and we’ll move on from there.” I tilted my head. “How would you rate our . . . the band’s performance last night?”
“I thought we nailed it.”
“I thought so too. But it was a hard-core set. Don’t you think there needs to be a ballad or two thrown in for balance?”
“You might be on to something.”
I knew I was, but decided to leave it there. With the idea planted in his mind, it could germinate and grow. With War, I had to hit him repeatedly with my ideas to get them through.
“So, you and War?” I raised a brow. “Does he piss you off as often as he does me?”
“Oh yeah.” Bryan’s eyes dancing to a familiar shared tune, he leaned forward. With only a handful of inches separating us, I could see the individual pixels of light gray and dark green within his thickly lashed, dream-inducing eyes.
“But he’s still your closest friend.” I pulled in a labored breath.