Bitter Sweet Heart (Lies, Hearts & Truths #2)(54)

She’s quiet for a few seconds before she says softly, “I don’t play games either.”

“Okay.” I push out of the chair. “Not long now, and we can stop doing this dance.”

She smiles faintly, even as her throat bobs with a nervous swallow. “Good luck on your finals.”

I open the door and check to make sure the hall is empty before I leave her office. I guess we’ll see how it all plays out once my grade is handed in.





A few days later, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, reading over my final story for my creative writing class one last time and shoveling cereal into my mouth when Lavender walks in. I expect Kody to be two steps behind her, but he isn’t.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” I ask as she opens the cupboard and pushes up on her toes, trying to reach the Lucky Charms. I’ve intentionally pushed them back so they’re hard for her to get to.

I also put the stepstool on top of the fridge. Is it a dick move? Yup. But it’s entertaining to watch my pint-sized sister get irritated on occasion.

She glances over her shoulder and gives me a look. “You mean your best friend?”

“Who is now your boyfriend.” I shovel another spoonful of cereal into my face.

She turns around, crosses her arms, and gives me her unimpressed look. It’s the same one our mom gives when I dress up bananas in the costumes she makes and leave them around the house. Lavender doesn’t say anything. Just keeps staring.

“He is your boyfriend.”

“He’s been your best friend since you two could make spit bubbles.”

“He’s been in love with you since he understood the concept,” I fire back. I don’t know why I’m in super dick mode, other than I’m stressed.

“I thought you were okay with this.” She pokes at her cheek with her tongue. “You’re the one who invited him to live here when their kitchen blew up.”

“I am okay with it.”

She climbs onto the counter, nabs a box of cereal, a bowl and a spoon, and crosses to the table, dropping into the chair across from me. “You two need to spend more time together. Without me around.”

“We play hockey together every day.” I can feel my ears going red, though, because this is the same conversation I had with BJ, and Lavender picking up on it too means I’m the common denominator in the problems here.

“That’s not the same. The whole team is there. He says you’re hardly around anymore. And every time he tries to do something with you, you bail on him.”

I’m about to argue, but then I realize he has been making an effort. Like the other day when he asked if I wanted to have breakfast after our morning skate, and then I ended up blowing off our plans that afternoon. We were supposed to run drills in the backyard, but I wasn’t in the right headspace for it, and I couldn’t be honest about why. “It’s finals” is my lame excuse.

She pours cereal into her bowl and tops it with milk. “I get that maybe you two can’t talk about”—she makes sexual hand gestures—“or whatever anymore, because that would be really fucking weird, and we already have enough of that with Mom and Dad and the banana costumes and Gigi and her always giving me sex toys, but it doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t hang out together.” She pokes around in her bowl of cereal, dunking marshmallows. “If you’re upset that we’re dating, say something to him about it. Deal with it. He and River have managed their issues, as much as they can anyway. Punch each other in the kidneys if you need to but avoiding him and me isn’t going to fix the damn problem. He misses you.” There’s a sadness in her eyes I don’t expect.

I frown. “He said that?”

“It’s been implied a lot lately. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Kodiak isn’t the most socially adept human being on the face of the planet. His friend group is pretty damn limited. And as much as I love him and love spending time with him, I need some balance too. And I actually can’t deal with the hockey talk.” She sighs. “So please, deal with whatever your feelings are and spend some time with your best friend so I don’t have to listen to a forty-five-minute breakdown after every single game.”

I make a face. “He does do that, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. He does.” She rolls her eyes. “Most of the time I try to shut him up by sitting on his face, but it doesn’t always work.”

I choke on a mouthful of cereal, spraying it across the table and my notebook. “I did not need to know that, Lav.”

“Whatever. That’s for all the times I’ve had to deal with the sound of your flavor-of-the-month banshee-screaming her love of your cock when I’m forced to walk by your room. Although . . .” She lifts a finger. “I haven’t heard that for a while. Like, a really long while. So you’re either dating someone exceptionally quiet in bed, or you’re on a hiatus. Or whoever you’re seeing has her own place.”

I stuff more cereal into my mouth instead of answering.

“Or his-their own place,” she adds.

I give her a look.

“Just checking. River’s finally learning to accept himself. You never know.”

I’ve recently come to find out that Lav’s friend Josiah has been low-key sucking face with River for most of the semester. None of us was surprised to learn River was gay. It was the fact that he’d been secretly dating one of Lavender’s friends that was the shocker.