Chapter 15

Lara’s next week had been delightfully Zavien-free—so much so that she had nearly forgotten about her irritating neighbor and the not-so-kind things he had said to her.

Nearly.

She had tried not to let it bug her and had mostly been able to write it off as something he had blurted out in the heat of the moment, but she would be lying if she said it didn’t still bother her.

Sure, she could be uptight, and yeah, she perhaps made a bigger deal of things than they needed to be, but she was a good person—something that she had proven by caring for his dog when he had been neglectful.

But this Zavien-free week had also been apology-free, which added to the situation and left a bitter taste in her mouth.

A knot tightened in her stomach as a whisper of a thought suggested that she was also hurt because she had been—reluctantly and barely—starting to like him, but she banished it with haste.

All in all, it seemed that an equilibrium had been reached; Zavien’s door remained closed, her mail remained hers, and she didn’t have to threaten to evict him and Pablo.

Even though she hadn’t properly gotten him back for that pizza debacle, she supposed the stunned look on the visible half of his face when she had presented him with Pablo would have to satisfy her.

Either way, it was done, and now she could have a happy, peaceful life.

“Your closet is so boring,” Delia complained, bringing Lara out of her ruminations.

Delia traipsed around Lara’s apartment, three sheets to the wind and, for some reason unbeknownst to Lara, wearing nothing but her underwear. With a pout, she admired herself in the mirror, holding one of Lara’s dresses in front of her.

Lara snatched it away and shoved it back into her closet. “Then it’s a good thing you have your own clothes. Now, either help me get dressed, or leave my home and go be a drunken menace without me.”

Delia considered the options and then flung herself onto Lara’s bed with a dramatic flair that was entirely her own. “So, have you boinked the hot neighbor man yet?” she asked as she made a disgusted face at the dress Lara had pulled out of her closet.

“Which one?” Lara grumbled to herself before putting the dress back. Annoying as she was, Delia was an expert in fashion. “No, and I think that is off the table. He thinks I’m crazy.”

“You are crazy.”

Lara glared at her through the mirror, but Delia paid her no mind.

“Ooo, what about that blue one?”

“That’s a blouse, Delia.”

“You’re such a prude.” Delia pouted. “You used to be fun. What happened?”

“I withered away into a humorless hag,” Lara said, peeling her shirt off and tossing it at Delia’s head. “Dress me or get out.”

Delia grumbled and threw the shirt aside before crawling off the bed and reimmersing herself in Lara’s closet.

This was standard practice for all their nights out: Delia would complain about Lara’s fashion choices and make bold decisions with Lara’s not-so-bold clothing, and then they would get so drunk that they would forget there had ever been tension between them.

Eventually, they would make it to the club—barely—have a loud and rambunctious night out, and then stumble home, possibly wearing their shoes on their feet or possibly wearing their shoes on their hands.

And when Delia procured a daunting pair of heels from the back of Lara’s closet, Lara decided it was a shoes-on-hands kind of night.

***

When Blake had said he had a surprise for Jae’s birthday, Lara had been worried, but now that she was three sheets to the wind, she couldn’t remember why.

Sure, Jae wasn’t one for crowds, and he had a generally surly disposition that didn’t exactly lend itself to being the life of the party, but Blake had somehow ticked all the right boxes to make what sounded like Jae’s nightmare into a wonderful birthday party.

Blake had rented out their old college haunt, the place where he and Jae had shared their first kiss. It also happened to be where Lara had had her first real fistfight when two asshats had something loud and rude to say about that kiss.

But tonight, the assholes—all of Blake and Jae’s friends—weren’t making ignorant comments; they were simply drunk, rowdy, and way too excited to make Jae the center of attention, knowing full well that he hated it.

Hooting and hollering at everyone who entered the bar, Blake doled out shots and grew louder every time someone took one. If there was ever an argument to be made for secondhand inebriation, it was Blake. He didn’t drink, but no one would ever know that by looking at him.

Jae, on the other hand, sipped brown liquor all night long, probably to cope with all the attention and affection. His pretty, fair skin was pink from alcohol and embarrassment, but he kept his hand intertwined with Blake’s as Blake paraded him around the space.

Lara gave Jae a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek alongside his gift, a tasteful, stylish, expensive merino wool sweater. He acted disgusted by it, but Lara knew better. When Blake demanded a kiss on his cheek too, she opted to bite him instead.

At least she got Jae to smile, even if it had been at Blake’s expense.

As much as Lara would have loved to catch up with old college friends—even some from high school who had also moved to Kinsley—Delia was done with mingling. Just as well, since the music had gotten too loud to hear anything else anyway.

She and Delia took to the dance floor with a slew of others, clumsily jumping around and stumbling into one another. The only breaks they took were for more drinks, and by the time Blake unveiled his “big surprise,” nearly everyone in the room was good and drunk.

And so, when Blake projected a slideshow of photos while singing the most horrendous rendition of “I’ll Make Love to You” known to man, Lara had no choice but to blame the liquor for the tears flowing down her face.

The photos were mostly of Jae and Blake from when they were little, growing up as best frenemies, all the way through to adulthood—still bickering but completely in love.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and after everyone dutifully wiped away their tears, they all went back to dancing.

The last cognizant part of Lara’s brain, which hung on by a thread, thought that Jae and Blake might have looked inconceivable from the outside, but to her, they were perfect together.

And for the first time in her adult life, she hoped that maybe—just maybe—she could have an unpredictable, unconventional, incomparable love like theirs one day.