I caught Jimmy’s eye from behind the bar and motioned to him for a cancer stick. “Jimmy will hook you up.”

I walked over to the bar, ordered four shots, a Jack and Coke, and then grabbed the cigarette and lighter from him. I made two trips back to the table with our drinks, sat down, and picked up my shot glass. “Cheers.”

“To good friends,” Dakota said before gulping down her shot.

After I downed my drink I brought the cigarette to my lips, lighting it for Rachel. I noticed the way she stared at my lips, and I hoped she was thinking the same thing I was. About getting lost in each other later tonight.

And I also hoped we weren’t too obvious in front of my sister and my best friend. But when I looked up, I saw they were too busy making small talk across the table to notice.

Even though I’d warned Shane not to touch my sister with a ten-foot pole, I was feeling more and more fraudulent. Who the hell was I to dictate whom someone wanted to hook up with?

Still, the idea of my best friend and my sister together made me nauseous. Especially after I’d heard stories from him my whole life about the different girls he’d had and what he’d done with them. I mean, he was definitely a decent guy—the best, actually.

But I couldn’t stomach the idea of them hooking up, especially when someone was bound to come away with a broken heart. I shook away the thought of that exact same scenario going down between Rachel and me.

I handed her the lit cigarette, and our fingers brushed against one another briefly, sending a low-voltage current through me. She bought the cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply. Something about her putting her mouth right where mine had been made me horny as hell.

“So, what the hell did Miles say?” Dakota said, finally asking the question we all wanted answered.

“If he said something to hurt you or even worse—” I started to say, but Rachel shot me a scathing look to shut me up.

“I don’t need you taking up for me anymore, asshead,” she said in the tone I’d come to find affectionate over the years. “But thanks anyway.”

“Fine, Shelly.” I emphasized the word, and she rolled her eyes. “For fuck’s sake, just tell us what happened already.”

She deadpanned and then shook her head, a hint of amusement playing along her lips. “Geez, we just talked . . . about what happened after my accident.”

I bit my tongue and ground my feet into the floor. I was liable to run out of the building on an all-out manhunt and never hear her explanation.

The table fell silent, waiting. We’d always been open like this with one another, but Rachel seemed reserved today. Nervous, even. She had already shredded the napkin in front of her and was now working on mine, her lit cigarette wasting away in the ashtray.

Was it because of what we’d been doing behind closed doors or was it that the conversation between her and Miles had been too emotional? Too brutal? She’d certainly looked a bit decimated when she left his table. As had he.

I tried to give her some reassurance by finding her thigh beneath the table and brushing against it with my fingers, but that only caused her to blush and tense up. And it only made me want to yank her against me. That dress she was wearing pushed up her cleavage, and fuck if I hadn’t just laid my eyes on those tits the other night.

She stubbed out the cigarette after being halfway done and heaved a deep sigh.

“He told me he’d been thinking a long time about why he’d done that to me.”

“And?” Shane said now, as if trying to urge her on.

“He walked away from me because he felt guilty,” she said, almost hesitantly. “Tha . . . that it had been his fault for urging me to get on that damn bike, after all.”

She moved her lips to say something else and then clamped her mouth shut. Maybe we didn’t need to hear the raw and gritty details of what two people had confessed to each other after being in a relationship. Even if it had been three years ago and in high school. I certainly didn’t want to hear any specifics, unless she needed to share them.

Shane tried to hide his remorse as his gaze fled to his lap, and I shook my head. Before I could say what was on the tip of my tongue, Rachel piped up. “And, Shane, you need to cut that shit out.”

His head sprang up. “Huh?”

“You feel guilty because it was your motorcycle,” she said. “Always have.”

He stared at her for another beat before nodding.

“Look, it was my choice to go for a ride. Nobody else’s,” she said, and Dakota nodded, maybe in an effort to comfort Shane. “It could’ve been anybody’s bike.”

“True,” Dakota said, starting to reach out to Shane before thinking better of it. The poor dude had tension rolling off of him in waves.

So I made an effort to lighten the mood. “Yeah, so stop beating yourself up about it. If I catch you moping anymore, I’m going to have to kick your ass.”

He cracked a smile. “I’d like to see you try, brother.” It was true—Shane was several inches taller and probably had about fifty pounds on me.

“Soooo . . .” Dakota dragged out the phrase, probably hoping Rachel would continue on her own. “How are you feeling about all of that?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said, and then ordered another drink from the server as she passed by our table. “I mean, I could tell he was being sincere.”

“Yeah?” Shane asked, looking over his shoulder as if he might see Miles somewhere in the casino.

“He said he had a hard time living with himself,” Rachel mumbled.

“He sure had a shitty way of showing it,” Shane said. “I mean, it took him long enough.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said. “But everyone deals with pain differently. Avery, my friend from college? She had some shit go down with her mom’s boyfriend when she was a teen and basically just shut everyone out of her life.”

Maybe she’d been closer with her college friends than she had let on. Or maybe she chose to share only what she wanted to.

“So what you’re saying is, you forgive him?” Dakota asked.

“I don’t know. I think I have to—so I don’t harbor this anger and sadness about him all the time.” She looked at her friend. “Don’t I?”

“Yeah, you do,” Dakota said before I could respond in the affirmative. “I mean, you’ve carried around all this baggage for the past three years, right?”

Rachel shrugged. “Yeah, mostly.”

“And you haven’t let any other guys get close,” Dakota said matter-of-factly.

I felt Rachel’s thigh tense up next to mine. Did she think she had let me get close? Or was she thinking of all of her past conquests?

“Did he say whether he wanted to see you again . . . or get back together?”

“Hell, no,” she said, steeling her jaw. “Besides, I wouldn’t want that anyway.”

“Really?” Dakota said, staring into her best friend’s eyes, searching for some measure of truth.

“He had someone with him,” Shane said, his words tentative, unsure of whether he was saying too much. “Some blond.”

“Right,” Rachel said. “He said she was his . . . friend and was there for moral support.”

I snorted and Shane smirked. “Wimp-ass.”

Dakota elbowed Shane. “I think that’s kind of sweet. It’s obviously been eating him up.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Rachel said. She was sounding mature about the whole thing. “But he’s still an asshat.”

Dakota grinned. “A jackass.”

“A total fuck stick,” Shane said, before downing his drink.

“A complete dickwad,” Rachel said, laughing. Now it felt more like old times, as the table erupted in laughter, everyone in stitches. My prim and proper sister actually called someone a jackass. Though with good reason.

Then Dakota reined in her laughter and leaned toward Rachel. “Do you . . . still have any feelings for him?”

Now it was my turn to hold my breath. I looked away, pretending I was watching the band set up.

“I don’t think so . . . not anymore,” she said, taking her time to carefully think about it. I blew out a breath but disguised it by taking a swig of my drink. “I think in a way, I’ll probably always care about him. But I see now that our relationship was childish, really. I’m not sure I know what real love is. Like, at all.”

“That makes two of us,” Dakota said.

“Three of us,” Shane said, raising his glass in a toast.

I clinked their glasses but kept my mouth shut. Because I think I absolutely did know.

But I was willing to let Rachel go, if that was what she needed in order to be happy.

Chapter Twenty-two

Rachel

Kai had left the table to talk to the guy working the soundboard, someone he seemed to know. I also understood it was natural for him to want to be where the music was. I thought he likely was miserable working for his father and felt lost this summer.

Neither of us seemed to know exactly who we were yet. Who we wanted to be. Except maybe who we wanted to be for each other. That felt natural, easy, almost primal.

Immediately I missed the nearness of Kai’s body. His thigh brushing against mine beneath the table. When he’d placed his fingers on my leg in a show of support, I’d nearly melted on the spot. That was the effect he had on me.

I was dreaming up excuses for how to get close to him again tonight, because after that conversation with Miles, I was ready to either get drunk or laid. It beat being alone in my own head for too long. I hated to envision another painful discussion taking place between Kai and me in a few short weeks. So maybe it was time to branch out, pick up somebody else in the casino. Dakota would just think I was trying to move on from Miles, so it would be a win-win for both of us.

Even though I’d spotted some good-looking guys playing poker across the way, I couldn’t keep my gaze from swimming back toward Kai. Noticing how his ass moved in those tight jeans, the bottoms straight and skinny, almost tucked into his black-and-white checkerboard Vans. How his biceps and forearms were muscled beneath the sleeves of that tight burgundy casino T-shirt he was required to wear.

Maybe my brain was messing with me. I had just met with Miles and I was already thinking about the next time I’d be able to see Kai alone. Ask him to hold him. Kiss me. Make me feel good.

Was it that we kept our trysts secret or that he made me feel safe? Safe even from my feelings over Miles. Was I, in fact, still insulating myself from those emotions? Every time I had the urge at TSU to email Miles, look him up online, ask him how he could have walked away so easily, I would find a new guy—preferably a jock—to get lost in.

But Kai was no jock. He was so different from Miles, from anyone I’d been with. So I was even more confused as to why I wanted him so damn much. And I was pretty sure that it came down to how he made me feel, inside and out. How he made me pant for him. Come for him without having sex. Just from the movement of his fingers.

Upon hearing the first note from the band, my eyes immediately sought out Kai again. He had moved toward the far wall to watch them perform. They were a cheesy nineties cover band, the same kind Kai would’ve snubbed his nose at in years past. His sense of music was refined, and he always despised the boy bands and pop music, which made it difficult to listen to the radio in the car when he was around.

I watched as a girl approached him. She was thin, statuesque, and gorgeous. She touched his arm, and his eyes briefly lit up, as if in recognition. My heart vaulted to my throat, my blood pulsing through my veins, as an unexplainable emotion coursed through me.

As she engaged him in conversation, I tried my hardest to keep my focus on the exchange between Shane and Dakota, rather than on Kai and Barbie.

“See, what’d I tell you about my brother?” Dakota said, following my line of sight.

“Leave him alone, he’s not doing anything wrong,” Shane said. “Just how it is. He’s a good-looking dude, a chick magnet—always has been.”

“You’re a good-looking guy,” Dakota said, but her tone wasn’t playful. “Are you saying the same is true for you?”

There was a jealous edge to her voice, and I couldn’t help picking up on the current running between them. I narrowed my eyes at Dakota. She finally remembered I was there, straightened, and looked away guiltily.

I was so cornering her once we were alone. She was going to tell me exactly what was going down between her and Shane.

But when I imagined her questioning the newfound chemistry between Kai and me, I changed my mind. Things might be better left unsaid, especially if Shane and Dakota didn’t yet understand the tension between them, either.

I wondered if Kai noticed anything happening between his sister and best friend and whether he’d pop a blood vessel over it. I certainly wasn’t going to point it out. But one thing was for certain: Dakota would never act on her attraction to Shane. She was too poised, too honorable to do that. She knew Shane was off-limits.

Since when had Dakota and I become so different?

As I looked across the table at my friends and noticed their sidelong glances at each other, I figured they were having the same trouble as me and Kai. Unable to keep their hands off each other but acting like it meant nothing. Well, at least I knew it meant nothing to Kai. Nothing more than a good time.

So what did it mean to me? I didn’t even want to think about it. I just wanted to go with it—I’d never had a problem thinking too hard about sex these past three years. Except those guys were not my childhood best friend’s brother.