getting married next week, so they're all over each other twenty-four seven."
Eddy almost busted a gut laughing. “Have you seen Riley and Beck together?” she choked out. “My innocent eyes are permanently scarred.”
They were both engrossed by their men, and… it didn't bother me. I loved to see people in love. It made me hopeful that maybe one day I'd get to feel like that, instead of the painful, uncomfortable, unrequited infatuation I'd developed with Dylan. Of course, now I was pregnant with his baby, which he so very clearly didn't want... Somehow, I suspected it might be a long time before I got to experience what these two couples had.
"So, there was something I've been meaning to ask you, Brooke," Riley said with a coy smile as she ate her bacon and eggs.
"Oh! Yes!" Eddy released her fiancé and came back around to her seat to re-engage in conversation with us. "Yes, curiosity is killing me."
My brows raised, I looked between the two of them. "I'm nervous now, but also intrigued. What did you want to ask?"
Riley flashed me a smile. "You said in the hospital that when you met Dylan, you were using your cousin's ID. Right?"
I nodded, confused about what that had to do with anything.
"Can we ask what her name is? Or what name you gave Dylan?" She bit her lip, like that could somehow hide the smug grin creeping over her face.
I shifted my gaze to Eddy again, but she looked just as enthralled, waiting for my answer. Weird. So weird.
"Uh, Serena," I told them truthfully. "Serena Michaels. She's not actually my cousin, not by blood. She was my mom's best friend's daughter, but they moved away before my parents died. I just always called her my cousin because our moms were as close as sisters."
Riley was grinning with pure glee. "I knew it!"
"Aw, now you're making me all heart-eyes over this," Eddy commented with a laugh, propping her head up on her hand.
Dante let out a sigh. "So much girl talk," he muttered. "Someone else in this friend group needs to learn how to cook."
Both girls ignored him, still staring at me with their metaphorical heart-eyes.
"Dylan told us about you," Riley half explained, half teased. "Or about Serena anyway. He kept finding bullshit reasons to travel to Colorado just so he'd have an excuse to see you—so stinking cute. Boy is totally in love with you, you know that?"
My cheeks flamed and my heart thumped hard in my chest. "What? No." I shook my head in utter denial. "No, we were just a casual hook-up thing. You probably got me mixed up with someone else."
Eddy snorted a laugh. "Doubtful. Dylan's not really a multi-woman kinda guy. The odds of there being two petite blondes in Boulder, Colorado, that he was making excuses to visit every two weeks? Low, girl. Real low."
I had absolutely nothing to say to that. Nothing.
"Okay, we're making Brooke uncomfortable," Riley conceded. "Change the subject. Did you guys decide on a honeymoon location yet?"
The girls smoothly shifted the conversation away from Dylan and I, and Dante placed a plate of creamy chicken and pasta down in front of me to eat. How the hell he’d cooked that so quickly, I had no idea, but I also wasn't arguing.
I ate quietly, only half listening to the conversation around me as I obsessed over what Riley had just told me. Dylan had told his friends about me? He'd made excuses to be in town? I'd always believed we were just a convenience thing—an easy fuck when he had business nearby. That's all it'd felt like... He’d never offered to take me out anywhere or even tried to talk to me. It was only ever about the sex with us.
Wasn't it?
"I think I might go lie down for a minute," I murmured after finishing my food. "Thank you for cooking, Dante; that was incredible."
The big, tattooed guy gave me a nod. "No worries."
"I'll bring the doctor up when he arrives," Riley told me with a soft smile. "Sorry if we freaked you out before."
I shook my head, still in denial. "No, all good. Just still feeling a bit beaten up, you know?"
Eddy and Dante both gave me smiles, and I made my way back up to the room I'd woken up in, a million conflicting thoughts buzzing through my brain. Just those few innocent comments from Dylan's friends had me second-guessing everything.
All those nights I'd turned up at Dylan's hotel room and we'd slept