Page 108 of Keeping Score

“I know the pact was a joke,” she admitted softly. “But I always thought you and I would sort of find our way back to each other. Didn’t you?”

I thought about it.

Back then, I didn’t know what I had thought about the future. I remember thinking Abbey was as good a person as any.

“I guess I did.”

“We’re friends still. Right, Brody?” she asked, hopefully.

“We’ll always be friends. You know that.”

“Then can I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“Will you come hang out with me for a little while? Because I really don’t want to be alone right now.”

I don’t know if it was because I was feeling as empty as she was, or if the thought of going back to a house that wasn’t home felt as uncomfortable as any other option I had, but when she stared up at me waiting for an answer, all I did was shrug and say, “Sure.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Brody

“Maggie’s in what?” I exclaimed into the phone, blinking in the darkness of the hotel room.

“In jail,” Liam said, an anxiety to his voice that I’d never quite heard. “And not just Maggie. Cassie’s with her. So, can you watch Lily or not?”

“No, I fucking can’t.” I laughed incredulously. “You think I have time to babysit when my girlfriends in fucking jail?”

“She’s not your girlfriend. You just kissed someone else in front of her a few hours ago.” He said, sticking a pin into my heart. “And my wife is there, so I need to go get her, now.”

Liam’s silence on the other end of the line alerted me to the fact that he might set me on fire if I refused, but I couldn’t do anything but.

“Sorry,” I bit out. “But I’m coming with you. You have to pick me up.”

“You think I have time for that?” I could tell Liam wanted to curse me out, but I also knew that his mind was probably already whirring with thoughts of what to do with his daughter.

“I’ll call your mom, have her go there and watch Lily. You know she will.”

“I can’t wait that long,” he said, and I pictured him glaring daggers at me.

“Too bad. You’re going to have to.”

“Where are you, anyway?” he asked, irritated.

“At a hotel.”

“Why?”

“I was catching up with an old friend,” I said, feeling guilty.

Abbey was sleeping in her bed. I had fallen asleep in the armchair across the room. We’d talked about old memories for an hour until we both had fallen asleep, probably mid-sentence. It had been totally innocent, but some part of me felt like it was wrong, even still.

“Catching up with the old friend who kissed you earlier?”

“It’s not like that—” I started to protest, but he cut me off.

“Not my business,” he said. “You do what you want. But I need to get Cassie, so you better be waiting outside in fifteen minutes.”