“It still sucks.”
“It does,” Erin agreed. “But … I can do this without worrying about who’s around.”
She kissed Cassie, softly, sweetly, and neither of them looked over their shoulder to see if they’d been caught.
“Okay,” Cassie said. “I guess it’s worth it.”
“You guess?”
Cassie grinned. “Maybe you should do it again to convince me.”
Erin was very convincing.
That night, after Erin barred her from helping clean the kitchen anymore and Acacia disappeared to call Donovan, Cassie knocked on Parker’s bedroom door.
“Come in.”
Cassie opened the door and took a couple steps into the room. Parker was fiddling with things on her dresser, not paying Cassie any attention.
“Parker…”
“Mm-hmm?” She was completely nonchalant.
“Can we like—talk?”
“Sure, bud. What’s up?” Parker sat cross-legged on her bed and looked at Cassie.
Cassie flapped her hands awkwardly. “I’m serious.”
Parker sighed. “I know. So talk.”
Parker had been nice to her, really, all day. Parker had been good. But Cassie had been a mess. Any time she’d actually thought about things, she’d been confused and awkward and distant and there was no way she was going to get past that until she did this.
She cracked her knuckles. “I’m sorry for lying to you,” she said. “I’m really fucking sorry for lying to you and sorry this whole thing got way bigger than I thought it was and fucked up a lot between us. I can’t really—I can’t say I wish it didn’t happen. Because I’m in a really good place right now. But I wish I hadn’t lied to you about it.”
Parker stared at her. Cassie would like to be on her bike, hugging curves on the backroads up to Nashua. She’d like to be in the lab, even though she’d spent too many hours there this week. She’d like to be under a car in a hot garage, sweaty and covered in grease. She’d like to be pretty much anywhere that wasn’t this bedroom, with her best friend staring at her like she didn’t know her.
But then Parker sighed again, and shifted over on the bed, patting the spot next to her.
“So come tell me about it, and be honest.”
Cassie approached Parker’s bed slowly. “Tell you about me and your mom?”
Parker didn’t even flinch. “Yeah. And I’ll tell you about how I went from wanting to kill you to realizing you were still my friend. Kiss and make up, you know?”
Cassie sat beside Parker on the bed, her legs hanging over the edge, feet on the floor like she might bolt at any moment.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Start at the beginning,” Parker said. “But leave out like, sex stuff, please, God.”
Cassie laughed. “I think I can do that.”
She breathed. And then she explained. Calmly, for the most part. She picked at Parker’s comforter as she talked, eventually swinging her legs up onto the bed and lying down. Staring at the ceiling was easier than looking at Parker’s face.
Parker stayed quiet until Cassie said that she had figured out Cassie had feelings for Erin before Cassie herself had. “What do you mean?”
Cassie closed her eyes. Parker had known she’d been lying to her for months. Parker had known but she had no idea what an idiot Cassie had been.
“I mean I figured out I was into your mom on Monday, Parker.”
“What?” Parker sounded so fucking confused. “Mom said you hadn’t talked about it, but you didn’t even know? When you’ve been—for like months. You sent her Valentine’s Day flowers.”
“I know,” Cassie said. She could feel everything bubbling in the back of her throat, all of the things she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, all of the ways she’d fucked up. Parker had asked her to be honest, and she was going to be fucking honest. “Acacia kept trying to tell me there was something there, and looking back on it, I look like a complete fucking moron, right? We texted daily, sent each other pictures every day. We made dinner together while FaceTiming. It’s fucking ridiculous that I didn’t figure my shit out.” She paused. Took a breath. “But I couldn’t be dating my best friend’s mom. I couldn’t want to date her. We were friends with benefits, that’s what I kept telling Kaysh. And that’s what I thought, honestly. Because the last time I dated, I got my heart crushed. Because she’s your mom. Because we live hundreds of miles apart. It’s so complicated it was easier just to think we were friends with benefits. No stakes. No one could get hurt.”