“You’re lying.” She laughs. “I’m trying to be a good friend and not push you to talk about things that you don’t want to, but . . . push, push. Tell me.”

A slow smile breaks across my face. “It’s not much. Just that Ethan and I went to the Becks’ house for dinner on Sunday—”

“You did what?”

I laugh.

“It’s Tuesday, Palmer, and you’re just telling me this? How do you even call yourself my best friend?” She huffs. “Oh, my gosh. Tell me everything.”

My cheeks flush. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“That’s it. I’m getting a new best friend that will let me live through her. That will share the sordid details of her life with me like a true ride or die.”

I watch as Fred, the parts runner, approaches his car. He waves at me with a puzzled look, probably wondering why I’m just sitting in the parking lot. I shrug. He laughs.

“Cole invited Ethan and I over for dinner with his family. It was really nice,” I say. “Then his parents took Ethan hiking, and Cole and I . . . you know . . .”

“You slept with him, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

She squeals. “I’m bringing wine over tonight, and you’re telling me all the things. If you get into those kinds of details now, I’ll get all flustered, and I have to go back into work.”

I laugh.

“So, what’s this mean?” she asks.

Her question is innocent. She means nothing by it, and if she had an inkling that her inquiry would throw me, she wouldn’t have asked. If I get this far into things with a man, it usually means there’s something there to build off. So it’s a fair question.

But this time? There’s nowhere to go from here.

My stomach wobbles. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Despite my best attempt to keep my voice nonchalant, even I can hear the hollowness in the words.

“Oh,” she says. “I just thought maybe . . . well, I don’t know what I thought. You’ve just been saying that you didn’t want to jump into things, and he . . .”

Yeah. I get it. This is stupid.

“I understand,” I say, my spirits sinking. “I mean, you’re right. This is going to be over before it really even starts.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

I strum my fingers against the steering wheel. My lips part for me to fall into old habits—to think the worst and start backtracking. But something stops me.

“No, it’s not.” My eyebrows rise. Even I wasn’t expecting to say that. “I’m not going to lie. I like him.”