Say You're Mine(27)

Chapter Ten

Lauren paced back and forth, nibbling on her thumbnail until there wasn’t much of it left to chew on. When a knock sounded on the front door, she sprinted to it, peeking out before opening it all the way. After her Brian “scare” last night…she was still a little on edge. “Oh, thank God you’re here.”

Her friend Daisy blinked at her. She held two to-go cups of coffee, and appeared to be still half asleep. Her red hair stuck up in the back, as if she’d forgotten to brush it, and she had bags under her eyes. But she was there, and that’s all that mattered. “What’s so important that you called me at eight o’clock with an SOS message on a Sunday morning to—”

“I slept with Steven,” Lauren blurted out, stepping back so Daisy could come in. “And it was incredible. Life changing. Earth shattering.”

Daisy gasped and came in, kicking the door shut behind her. “Oh, holy crap. That’s totally SOS worthy. Tell me everything. And don’t you dare leave out a single detail.”

Lauren flopped back on the couch—in the same spot that Steven had been sitting in last night when she found him jerking off. That did things to her. Things she had no right feeling since last night had been a one-time thing, and it was just for fun, and God, she was so sick of that word. “I will, but the bad stuff first. I kind of sort of lied to him.”

“Oh, crap.” Daisy sat beside her, tucking her foot underneath and turning toward Lauren. Holding the coffee mug out, she pursed her lips and blinked those bright green eyes at her. “He hates liars.”

“Yeah,” she groaned.

Steven and Daisy didn’t hang out. They didn’t run in the same circles. But since Daisy was one of Lauren’s only friends that wasn’t also friends with Steven…she knew everything about him. And Lauren’s attraction to him that she tried so hard to deny and ignore. Or, she had up until last night, anyway, when she ignored it all in the name of fun.

“Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t really have a choice.” Lauren shook her head, staring down at the coffee mug. “Okay, that’s a lie. You always have a choice. But I was worried about him. He’s been drinking a lot, and both Lydia and Holt asked me to help keep an eye on him.”

Daisy whistled through her teeth and reared back. “Wait, so you slept with him to keep him around?”

“What? No. God, no.”

“I don’t get it.” Daisy sipped her cappuccino. “How did you lie to him, then?”

She sipped her coffee, too, and it scalded her tongue. “Brian snuck in when I was in the shower, and I didn’t know it was him. When I heard footsteps, I called Steven and he, of course, came running. By the time I realized it was just Brian coming to get his stuff, Steven was here, and he looked so worried…and it occurred to me that the best way to keep him here was to ask him to stay because I was scared. I was right. It worked.”

“Wow. So the sleeping together part just kinda happened?”

Lauren blew out a breath. “Yeah. I decided he needed to be reminded how fun life was, and then he was there, staring at me…”

The way his eyes had heated as he stared at her, as if he was thinking about kissing her, would forever be burned in her memory. No matter how many years passed, last night would go down in history as the most amazing night ever. And if she wished she could have more nights like that?

Oh well.

He didn’t. And they wouldn’t.

After watching men walk away from her for most of her life, she learned not to get attached to anyone, or anything. She didn’t really lose sleep when they left her life. You’d have to care about someone to, you know, miss them. But Steven didn’t fall into that category. Never Steven.

If she lost him…

God. She couldn’t. It wasn’t an option. Which was why it was so important to pretend she didn’t want, or need, more. So she didn’t scare him off.

“Earth to Lauren.” Daisy snapped her fingers. “Hello? Anybody home?”

Lauren jerked back into the present. “Sorry. So sorry. Uh…what were you saying again?”

“What happened after you kissed him? Did he freak out?”

Lauren frowned. “Yeah. He pushed me away and sent me to bed alone after he…well. Got me there.”

Her cheeks got hot. Despite all the men she dated and lost, she didn’t really sleep with a lot of them. And when she did, she didn’t tell everyone about it.

Or give a play by play.

Daisy flipped her bright red hair over her shoulder. “Do go on.”

“I’m not good at this,” Lauren muttered. “Plus, this was different. It was intimate. Real. And when I kissed him, he took me there, and it was amazing, but he sent me to bed without actually, you know, having sex with me. And he didn’t come.”