Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,273

kid. I’m proud of you. Having your own space … you’re ready. It’ll give you more privacy, more independence. And it means you won’t have to sneak girls into your mama’s house anymore.”

“You know full well there have been no girls.” I furrow my brows.

She shoots me an annoyed look. “That’s half the reason I want you to sign the lease on this place. Five years is way too long for a man to go without sex. Not even love, I’m not saying you need to find your soul mate. But you need to get laid, kid. Your shoulders are in a permanent slouch.”

“Are you offering?” I clasp my hands together in a praying motion.

Cookie snorts. “You couldn’t handle the likes of me.”

Her comment brings my mind straight back to Ryan Shea on the dance floor of the recreation room, in that hotter-than-Hades black dress.

I’m not sure I can handle the likes of her, either. I know she’d never be attracted to a guy like me. Ryan has dated men from Greece, New York City, Italy … guys who actually went to college. Her dating past was worldly, and she’d rubbed elbows with men who worked at the top companies in the world. These guys probably had penthouses and traveled first class.

Meanwhile, all I could afford was an apartment above the pizza shop on Main Street in the Podunk town I’d grown up in.

Fine, I shouldn’t call it Podunk. I love Fawn Hill. This place centers me, and I have no desire to leave.

But when I compare myself to the big hitters on Ryan Shea’s relationship résumé … it’s hard not to feel like a total bum.

Today isn’t about her, though. This is about the next step in my recovery and making the life that resembles exactly what I want in this world.

“Maybe in another life, Cook.”

I sling my arm around the woman who helped save me, and we walk downstairs so I can buy her a slice or two.

17

Ryan

I’ve been in Fawn Hill for almost two months when Presley finally broaches the subject I’ve been expecting her to ask about for weeks.

“When do you think you’ll head back to New York?” she starts the conversation while we eat lunch together in her kitchen.

Keaton is at the office, and she has a rare break from the studio and decided to come home.

Instantly, I bristle. “Why, do you not want me here anymore?”

The wounded foster kid in me bares her teeth, ready to defend her already-damaged heart and get herself prepared to be thrown away yet again.

“No! Oh my gosh, I shouldn’t have started off that way. That’s not what I mean at all. I love having you here, we both do. You can stay here as long as you like. I just mean … well, don’t take this the wrong way. But … you seem lost, Ry.”

Turmoil rages in my gut, because she’s right, of course. But I haven’t put words to my complete lack of a plan, of a path, and I’m not sure I want to talk about it yet.

“I … don’t know. When I’m going back I mean. To be honest, New York hasn’t felt like home in a long time. It used to, maybe because you were there. But now, nowhere feels like home. I was in Greece for so long that I kind of lost sight of my life, and now that my relationship is over, it feels like I can’t just waltz right back into the life I basically abandoned. Not that I was even fond of the life I had before, I don’t know, I feel like I’m not making any sense.”

My friend sets down her fork, balsamic dressing dotting the napkin next to her bowl. “You don’t always have to know exactly where you need to go.”

A whoosh of exasperation blows out of my mouth. “But I usually do! From a young age, I’ve always been decisive. I know where I want to go, and I get there.”

“I’m going to be honest with you now because I can see how much you’re struggling with this. You may have been decisive … but Ry, you never seemed all that happy with your choices when you got to where you thought you wanted to go.”

Her brutal assessment of me feels like a sucker punch to the gut. It’s harsh … and I can feel the sting of tears threaten. All the years, and I never knew that’s how my best friend viewed me.

Presley holds