Page 21 of The Fast Lane
Besides, I’d just been a kid when I’d been in my deepest Theo feels. We’d grown up, dated other people, shared laughs and tragedies, even a family vacation or two. As an adult, I proved I was able to handle a friendship without all these…invasive thoughts.
Theo was too important to me. If keeping him in my life meant only as a friend, then that’s exactly where he would stay. In the friend zone.
If only he wasn’t so adorable.
Also, I needed to up my fantasy game.
Theo shot me a confused look. “Did you say something about fantasies?”
My cheeks heated. Please tell me I didn’t say that out loud. When I spoke, I sounded like a mouse after a shot of helium. “Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
“Are you okay?” He shot a quick glance in my direction.
I cleared my throat and grinned. “I’m good.”
His hand, the hand, rose and hovered in the air. Was he going to touch me?
He pointed at the radio. “So, you’re okay with this?”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said with confidence although I had no idea what I was agreeing with. He could have asked if, at the next rest stop, we both stripped naked and ran around the parking lot.
Theo made a sound of disbelief. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”
“Who, me? I’m like the queen of agreeability. Practically my middle name.”
He scoffed, and with reason. “I wasn’t aware of that, especially after our last road trip.”
I grinned. The last time I’d been on a road trip with Theo was a few years ago when I’d hitched a ride to Dallas to see Alec. Theo’d “surprised” me by bringing along a date. Her name was Terra. It wasn’t that I minded he brought her; it was that I would have liked to be prepared. See, the thing was, Theo had terrible taste in women. Or at least, I thought he did.
For example:
Angel Miller, his first real girlfriend, in high school. Although her given name was Angela, she insisted on answering only to Angel. With her bouncy hair, sultry smile, and love of being the center of attention, she’d naturally been a cheerleader. I hated her on principle. It made matters worse that I was deep into my Theo obsession, and she’d picked up on it. Oh, yes, she figured it out three minutes after meeting me and took the first chance she could to tell me to back off. Like I’d even been a threat. I often thought fondly of that one time when she received her new team cheerleading outfit only to find out her name had been misspelled. There’d been some mix-up, you see. Poor Angle had to wear the thing for weeks before the mistake could be corrected.
Carly Whitman: Theo had met her in college, and they’d become an item almost immediately. They dated for three years and everyone, me included, was sure they’d eventually get married. Carly wasn’t horrible at first. But her campaign to change pretty much everything about Theo started within a few months of their relationship—from his clothes, to his hair, to the personal trainer sessions she gave him for Christmas. When she insisted he change his college major to accounting so he could work for her father one day, Theo finally saw the light.
Most recently, Maddison with the Double Ds, and those Double Ds referred to more than the spelling of her name. Maddison of the hourglass figure and long legs, the pretty blue eyes, and the long blonde hair. Was I a little jealous? She was the exact opposite of me in almost every way and I guess that stung more than a little. Not that it mattered though. I was dating Alec anyway. Plus, I had zero say in who Theo spent his time with. Except she was so uninterested in doing all the things Theo liked to do—hiking or game night. But she did like to take selfies pretending to do those things. Thankfully, the relationship didn’t last as long as the other two. As a dedicated friend, I was relieved when they broke up.
So that afternoon over two years ago, I hadn’t been excited to see Terra in the car. “This is a surprise. Theo didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“Oh, it was last-minute,” Terra had said, her dark eyes watching me carefully. “I had to meet the woman Theo talks about all the time.”
Sure, my heart beat a little faster hearing that. But just as quickly, I’d reminded myself that maybe he’d told her some of the stories about our growing up days. The five of us had gotten into some pretty epic adventures.