Page 65 of The Lucky One
He nodded, but his eyes lingered on Emily before he disappeared into the house. I sighed. Maybe he didn’t deserve my attention either.
I sat down in the passenger seat. Ugh, it was damp. I perched on the edge and opened the window for a breeze.
“You need to talk to him, Jon,” Emily urged, standing in front of the car.
“I know,” Jon said. “It’s... difficult.”
“I know but...” She tugged at his shirt, pleading with her eyes. “Doesn’t it make it worse?”
Jon glanced at me for a moment. “Rule #3,” he said to Emily. “Okay?” Emily nodded.
Rule #3? What was that supposed to mean?
“And here’s rule #1.”
He leaned in, and I quickly stared down at my hands in my lap, not looking up until Jon had closed his car door. Emily’s shadow vanished through the front entrance of Paul’s house. She didn’t need to sneak through the garage, unlike some people.
Jon started the car and pulled out of the driveway. “What happened to his hands?” he asked again.
“You should ask him that,” I retorted, for the first time agreeing with Emily on something.
“I can’t,” he growled, and I rolled my eyes in return.
“Paul is a good person, and you’re supposed to be his best friend. How can you abandon him like that?”
Jon braked at a red light. “So, you two are what? Lovers? Buddies?”
I raised my brow. “Jealous?”
He snorted. “Kiki, fuck. If you two like each other, it would make things a lot easier.”
My heart contracted. I knew he was over me, but wanting me to date his best friend, or whatever Paul was to him now, didn’t sit right. I shivered and pulled up the window. “We’re just friends,” I said, because in the end nothing had happened between us. If you could call this night nothing.
“Too bad.” Jon sighed. It sounded like he meant it.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back in the damp seat. After a few more eternal minutes, the car came to a halt in front of my place.
“Thanks for the ride,” I muttered and opened the car door.
“Kiki.” Jon’s voice pulled me back by the throat. I turned to him. “Have you, um, read the letter?”
“Does it make any difference?”
He held my eyes, nodding slightly. “I hope one day we can be friends. Just like them.”
I shook my head. If he seriously believed that, he wasn’t the same Jon I used to know. “You really think Emily and Paul are just friends?”
“No, they’re more than that.” His face was empty, impossible for me to read.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Yeah. He’s important to her. Plus it looks like he’s into you, so it’ll all be solved soon.”
I let out an epic snort. “That’s your plan? To park your ex-girlfriend with your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend to get him out of the way?”
He made no response.
Anger flushed into my ears. Jon was smart, and he knew I wasn’t stupid either. The fact that he was acting so blind made me lose all the patience I had left. “For fuck’s sake, Jon!” I threw my hands in the air. “She’s living with Paul, and judging by the look on her face tonight, she isn’t over him. Haven’t you noticed how much time they spend together? How close they are?”