I tried again. I had to. He was a good friend to try after eight years of me ghosting, and since he’d showed up, it’d been drama overload. I never used to be a shitty friend.

I didn’t think so, anyway. But that might’ve been something else I was deluded about.

“You gotta know it wasn’t just the camp group,” I said. “It was everyone. I ghosted on everyone in my life. My family too.”

“I know.”

The music blared as someone opened the door. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

He waited until the door closed again, until it was just Boom, boom, boom, and then he leaned forward, his forehead almost touching mine across the table.

“I knew you were going through it. We all did, and some of that’s on us too. You know, when you and…”

Damian.

It was time his name was said.

He hesitated to say his name. Hell, even I did at this point.

He cocked his head to the side. “When you began dating Damian, I’ll admit that some of us didn’t handle it the right way. I know I got pissed—not because you were with someone, but because I couldn’t call you at three in the morning to talk about whatever girl I had in my bathroom and figure out how to get her out of my apartment. At some point, you were no longer our Charlie, but his Charlie.”

I picked at the table. Some dickhead had scratched penis into the wood, and damned if I wasn’t going to turn that i into an upside-down actual penis. Just needed to add some girth and another ball. Or I was stalling. Again.

I glanced up, meeting Trent’s knowing gaze. Why’d he always look at me that way? Like he was an all-knowing wise owl.

I raised a shoulder, feeling guilt bloom in my chest. “You should’ve been able to do that, except Damian should’ve joined the conversation.”

God.

One year ago. That’s how long ago I’d left that relationship, and I’d been such a mess that it took eleven months to realize I needed something drastic to get me back in the land of the living—and social media.

Hence my Lucas mistake. We met at my gym, gushed over Reese Forster, and I’d given a reckless yes to his suggestion we grab a beer, which had ended with Newt. Good old Newt.

I sighed. I was starting to miss the old grandpa.

But not his thieving ways.