said, nodding in triumph.
“No, I mean, it’s not true. I can’t believe you’d think that about me.” And Yasmine couldn’t believe she was lying to her own best friend, but she felt as though her dirtiest little secret had just been announced to the world, and she’d been caught completely unprepared.
Cass’s eyebrows quirked, a telltale sign that she didn’t buy a word of Yasmine’s story. “Okay, let’s do a little ‘decade in review’ then.”
“Let’s don’t.”
She ignored Yasmine and continued. “First, Yasmine is released from juvenile detention. Then she forgoes her plans to attend Stanford and instead goes to Cal State. While there, she lives a low-key existence, studies hard and graduates a year early. Nothing else of note happens in her life—no torrid love affairs, no unkempt treks through Europe, very little drunken excess to speak of. All of her relationships are with safe, emotionally unavailable bad boys, meaning no commitment required. Upon graduation, she takes the first job she can find at a sex software company, of all places, and she continues working there, with no notable events occurring in her life, until now.”
Yasmine frowned. “You make me sound so boring.”
“That’s just it. You’re one of the most interesting people I know, and yet you’re living the most boring life. Don’t you ever stop to ask yourself why?”
“I just want to stay out of trouble.”
Oddly, unexpectedly, Yasmine was struck with a wave of sadness. It was as if she felt that she needed to mourn the life she’d been failing to live. All this time she thought she’d been a bad girl trying to be good, when really she’d tamed herself to the point of being no kind of girl at all. Just an empty shell, devoid of all the stuff she hoped people would see in her. No wonder guys focused on her outward appearance—there wasn’t anything left inside to appreciate.
She felt her lower lip quivering, which was possibly the most idiotic thing she’d done all week.
“Oh, sweetie, what is it? I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Yasmine took a sip of the water a hurried waitress had placed on the table before rushing off. The drinking gave her a chance to regain her composure.
“How did this go from your Drew dilemma to a dissection of my life?”
Cass made a little half smile. “You know how I hate being under the microscope. I’m sorry I upset you.”
“You were hoping I’d jump for joy at the news that my life is dull and meaningless?”
“I just thought you needed to hear the truth. I don’t want you to throw away your life trying so hard to stay out of trouble. You’re a good person who made a mistake.”
“No, I’m a bad person who’s learned how to control my impulses.”
“You just keep telling yourself that.”
“And what?”
“You can grow old bored and alone. Is that what you want?”
Yasmine downed the rest of her water as she stared across the room at the restaurant full of couples and friends smiling, talking, looking happy. When was the last time she’d sat in a restaurant looking happy with a guy she was in love with?
The awful truth slapped her in the face. She’d never been in love. She’d dated, she’d had lovers, and she’d sat in restaurants with them, probably on the outside looking as though they were a happy couple. But in the end, those affairs had always fizzled out, fueled by nothing more than the quick burst of passion that faded as quickly as fireworks.
“Of course not. I don’t want to be alone.”
“So do you think you’ll be ready to tell Kyle the big L word anytime soon?”
Yasmine couldn’t help it, she smiled. “Who knows. Anything’s possible, right?”
“Like maybe…On New Year’s Eve, as you ring in the new year?”
“Ohh, that’s way too soon. But it would be romantic. Assuming he feels the same way.”
And what if he did? What if he felt some kind of heavy emotions, too? She had to know for sure, so she decided right then and there that yes, she’d see Kyle again soon, and she’d take a risk. She’d tell him how she really felt.
She couldn’t think of a better way to start off the new year.
14
ALEX RUBBED HIS EYES and leaned back in his desk chair, tired of working and tired of being alone. Avoiding Yasmine sucked. Not having her around sucked, not making love to her sucked, and leaving all his lies hanging between them sucked most of all.
He couldn’t focus on work until he told her