“Are you going to hang out with Lara?”
I nearly swallow my own tongue. “What? What are you?—”
Lara and I were unnecessarily careful in high school, to the point where you would have thought we belonged to rival families. Sometimes it felt dramatic, but sometimes it also felt like it kept us sane. Like the entire school knowing about the thing between us might have ruined it.
They would have reduced it to something it wasn’t. Dumb jock dates nerd, some sort of tween romcom about opposites attracting.
“Please, Jake,” she laughs. “You think you kept that a secret from me? You basically kept her photo in a locket around your neck.”
I gasp. “You went into my room.”
“Just once, looking for gum. Not my fault you built a shrine.”
“Inevershould have given you the key.”
“Yeah, whydidyou do that?” Shelby laughs, and I shake my head, scrubbing my hands over my cheeks and realizing I’ve missed this — bantering with my little sister. Going back and forth with someone who really knows me.
“So, is that who you’re going to see?” Shelby’s eyes shine with something I can’t quite identify, something under the surface that makes me want to press her, ask her for answers. Like there’s something she knows about Lara that I don’t.
For the first time, it occurs to me that Lara could be seeing someone else. But she wouldn’t have agreed to see me if she was, right? Then again, I did specify that we would just be catching up. I didn’t call it a date.
As much as I want it to be one.
“That’s none of your business,” I finally answer, swatting at her, shepherding her toward the door. “Now, get out. Go home and rest. I can tell you came here straight from your flip.”
Shelby rolls her eyes at me but walks with me out to the driveway, looking like she could fall asleep at the wheel.
“And text me when you get home,” I say, and as I do, I realize I don’t even know where home is for her.
“Fine,” she says, then, before ducking into her car, “I will if you mess up your hair a bit — you are not a gelled back kind of guy.”
I scowl at her, wait until she’s pulled out of the driveway, then run my hand through my hair as I drive over to meet Lara at the lake.
CHAPTER 17
LARA
If I were Zachery, I might make a joke about Jake taking me out on the boat so he could drown me and dump the body. But I’m not Zachery, and even all these years later, I still feel completely at ease with Jake.
“Got enough sunscreen?” I ask, eyeing Jake’s arms, which look like they’re already turning pink.
“I think I do,” he says, setting down the oars and grinning at me, “but I’m getting the feeling you want me to wear more, so I’ll apply extra.”
I smile at him and squirt even more into his palms, watching as he applies to make sure he doesn’t miss any spots.
“Must come with the territory, huh?”
Startling, I meet Jake’s eyes, fear twisting through my chest — what territory? Being a mom? Has he heard something about the triplets?
As though he can tell I’m confused, he clarifies, “Being a nurse. Wanting people to wear enough sunscreen.”
I nod, trying to breathe through the panic that was starting to build in my throat. My reaction tells me that this entire thing is wrong — that if I didn’t reach out to tell him about the triplets in all these years, I can’t let him find out now.
Although … maybe it’s been long enough now. He’s in the NHL. I’ve proven that I can do it myself, or, at least, without Jake’s help. If I tell him now, he might not feel obligated to stay and be a part of their lives.
But something else tells me that’s not true, that I know Jake well enough to know he wouldn’t go back to the NHL. Really, nothing has changed. He’s still the same person he was all those years ago.
Well, except for the fighting he’s been doing recently.
