When We First Met by Cara Bastone

Author:Cara Bastone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2020-03-18T18:33:02+00:00

* * *

“HEY, I THINK I’M gonna invite our neighbor over to watch with us,” Quentin said to Jared the next Tuesday.

After a lot of consideration, he’d decided to find a way for Cat to hang out with Jared. For one, he’d told her he’d do it and he hated going back on his word. Even though it was a nightmare to think of her becoming one of Jared’s casual hookups, he thought there was something kind of condescending about trying to intervene. He didn’t think that Jared and Cat would be good together, but that wasn’t for him to decide. That was for Cat to decide. He had a crush on her, but that didn’t mean he was allowed to screw around in her dating life. Besides, if she got to know Jared better and still wanted to hook up with him, then Quentin figured that he and Cat probably weren’t right for one another in the first place.

So this was him, sticking to his stupid principles on a Tuesday night, trying not to crack a molar as he ground his teeth.

“Huh?” Jared looked up from where he was stirring pasta on the stove.

“Our neighbor Cat, across the hall.”

“Who has a cat across the hall? When Lara wanted me to get that pet hedgehog you told me this was a no-pets building.”

“Jared,” Quentin said with a laugh, dragging a hand down his face. “Look alive over there. First of all, this is a no-pets building. Second of all, you can’t have a hedgehog in New York City. It’s illegal. Third, I’m talking about our neighbor whose name is Cat. I’m gonna invite her over to watch the movie.”

“Oh. Sure.” Jared turned back toward the pasta and stirred listlessly.

Quentin had seen Jared mope like this every single time he and Lara had broken up. But it didn’t feel good to see his cousin hurt. “Are you sure you’re all right, man?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. But it’s just really over this time,” Jared said hollowly.

That was what he’d said last time as well, but Quentin didn’t want to be an asshole by bringing it up. “What makes you say that?”

“Because she smashed my phone.” Jared sighed as he dumped the pasta into a colander to drain. “She knows I don’t have the money to get a new one right away. Which means that when she smashed it, she knew she wouldn’t be able to reach me for a while. She’s never done that before. Usually when we break up she’s blowing up my phone like crazy for weeks.”

Quentin cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s better this way. A clean break. It’s harder to get a fresh start if you’re always in communication with each other, you know?”

“A fresh start? I haven’t had one of those since we started dating sophomore year.”

Quentin got a sudden flash of the person Lara had been in high school. Chipper and smiley. She’d always had a temper but she’d been...happier. Quentin remembered the way her high ponytails used to bounce when she’d gallop down the hallway to jump into Jared’s arms.

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