Wicked Sexy Liar (Wild Seasons #4)(72)

“But Harlow.”

It’s all I can really think to say. And as soon as I do, the two words hang heavily in the air between us. It should be, But Mia—except it isn’t, because Mia doesn’t care. Or, it should be, But I’m afraid—except it isn’t exactly that, either, because although part of me is afraid, a much bigger part of me wants to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Like the wise person she is, Lola also lets the words hang there. Instead of growing bigger and more meaningful, though, they start to feel small, and silly.

“I don’t reckon it’s up to Harlow,” Oliver says quietly.

Tilting her head, Lola studies me sympathetically. “Honey, have you been worried about her this whole time?”

I give her a bewildered smile. “I mean . . . yes? It seemed like a pretty big deal. You guys didn’t invite me to breakfast the other day, the picnic was fun, but strained. Even Luke noticed Harlow was acting weird.”

Lola sighs, giving Oliver a knowing look I can’t really interpret.

A toilet flushes down the hall and the bathroom door opens.

My stomach drops with realization.

“Harlow Francesca Vega. Join us in the kitchen, please.” Lola’s angry-calm voice actually sounds terrifying.

“I didn’t know she was here,” I mumble to Oliver, who gives me a sympathetic wince.

Harlow walks down the hall, brows pulled down in concern. “What?”

“How much did you hear?” Lola asks.

Shaking her head in confusion, Harlow says, “I was peeing a decade’s worth in there. I heard nothing.”

Lola turns to her, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “London here is a mess.”

“She is?” Harlow moves immediately over to me. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

Oh, God, this is awkward.

I give Lola a look that I hope successfully communicates both help and way to put me on the spot, Castle.

Lola tilts her head to me. “London likes Luke.”

“Didn’t we know this already?” Harlow asks, stepping back a bit, and her expression is almost entirely unreadable to me. Her top lip is curled up slightly, brows drawn in tight, and it could be confusion, but it could also be irritation.

I feel like I’ve just stepped off the edge of the pool and I keep drifting deeper. It’s weird to have a group of friends influence a dating decision, but also never really speak directly to me about it. Is this what it’s like to be part of a group? Whether it is or not, it makes me feel even more on the periphery. I have no-drama Ruby, and I used to have no-nonsense Nana. Both of them always let me know where I stood. Harlow is harder: she’s up front, but she circles through a world of emotions in a day. I’m terrified of saying the wrong thing here.

“I don’t want to jeopardize friendships,” I tell them. “But I honestly have no idea what to make of your reaction to me seeing Luke. You guys mean a lot to me, and I don’t want it to be weird for Mia—”

“It’s not,” Lola cuts in quickly.

“—or you two, or anyone,” I say. “I didn’t realize Luke was Mia’s Luke, and then after I did, it felt like he was someone different. For me.”

In my periphery I see Oliver turn carefully and make his way out of the kitchen and down the hall to Lola’s bedroom.

The three of us wait for him to close the door, and we then look up to each other in our tiny triangle of awkward. Finally, Harlow leans back against the counter, shrugging a little helplessly. “I’m not really sure what to say. Do I have feelings about it? Yeah, sort of.”

This actually gets my back up a bit. “Look, ever since we first hooked up, I’ve been worried about Luke’s history with girls, worried about whether I’m willing to deal with romance again, worried about whether even hanging out with him would jeopardize my friendships with you guys. But if Mia is fine, I don’t know that it’s fair for you to be upset with me over it.”

“I agree,” she says, surprisingly nodding. “And since you hadn’t brought it up with us, I assumed you didn’t care what we thought. I respected that, and was getting over it. But if you’re asking me, then I’ll tell you: yeah, I had a knee-jerk reaction when Mia called and told me. It’s one thing for Mia to see Luke banging anything that moves, and it’s another for her to imagine him falling in love again. She’s completely in love with Ansel, but of course she had feelings about Luke finding someone, even if we all know that reaction is petty, or unfair.”

Lola blinks down to the floor at this, and my heart stretches too thin inside my chest. I get it: I would never get back together with Justin, but the idea that he loves the person he’s with now—that he’s marrying her—is irrationally painful.

“Mia called me and knew that she wasn’t being totally fair, but it threw her,” Harlow continues. “Luke and Mia started ‘going steady’ in sixth grade, whatever that means. Her accident f*cked us all up—a lot—and when they broke up we”—she motions between her and Lola—“had to figure out how to support Mia best. It meant we lost Luke, and that sucks. Because he was ours, see? So yeah, I had an initial reaction, and I’m not sure that it’s the right one, but it was genuine.”

I know there’s a lot of history there—there’s a lot of history here, between all these women, and sometimes it seems easier to keep it surface-level than to really work to get to know them. But with this honesty from Harlow, I know I want friends like this. I want friends who’ll worry about my emotions, even when those emotions feel petty or small.