Dancing with a Stranger

Chapter Thirty-Four

"I should be asking you the same thing," I answer, raising a brow at my best friend.

"Would you believe me if I said I just wanted to see you?" Tiffany laughs, blowing me a kiss across the table.

"Not a chance," I shrug.

"Fine," she sighs, "you got me. I actually took the day off and I'm spending it with Oscar." She points to a table across the restaurant where he's sitting with his back to us. "He thought it'd be nice to go by the library for a bit."

"And you agreed?!" I sputter, choking on the water I had just sipped. "Will the real Tiffany Campbell please stand up?"

Tiffany crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. "Oh, you're a comedian now. I see how it is."

We both start laughing and immediately the tension I've felt throughout my entire lunch hour dissipates. Whether she knows it or not, Tiff always comes through when I need her.

She looks over at him again and smiles, her infatuation with him on full display. "I figured he could look at books and I could talk to my best friend. But, when I got there, Emma informed me that you had left for lunch. Way to let me down, Lace," she huffs in annoyance.

"Heaven forbid you actually go to the library for what it's meant for and browse some books."

"Boring!" she sings, covering both sides of her mouth like an air horn. "Why do that when I could hang out with you? Who you here with anyway? Mr. Mysterious?" Her eyes scan the restaurant frantically looking for a glimpse of a man who isn't even here.

"I told you-"

"Yeah, yeah, he has a name. I get it. I like my name for him better," she smirks.

"Of course you do," I reply sarcastically, as she giggles. "And no, not him. I'm actually here with..."

"Hey Tiff."

She jumps at Braden's voice, raises her brow at me then turns around. "Hello, Braden," she responds, a level of disgust in her tone. "I wasn't aware you two had patched things up." She glances back at me questioningly.

Braden clears his throat before grabbing his glass and taking a sip of water. "Umm, we haven't...well, not yet anyway."

"Not yet, hmm?" she questions, her finger tapping at her lips as she looks between us again.

"A guy can hope, right?" he chuckles nervously, kicking at the floor absentmindedly.

Tiffany's expression changes and I know she's entering her protective best friend mode. Ever since we were kids, she took it upon herself to always look out for me, particularly after my parents died and some of the kids would make fun of me. "You're going to need a lot of hope after the dick move you played, buddy," she says coldly.

"Tiff, it's fine," I chime in, wanting to deescalate the situation before it gets out of hand. "Just drop it, okay?"

"It's fine? Drop it? No, I will not drop it because it's not fine," she argues, pointing a finger at me. "I know what I told you before about getting back together with him, but he also needs to know how much he broke you."

"I'm awa-"

"Nope! Do not interrupt me, Braden Mitchell!" she shoots back, her accusatory finger now in his face. "You didn't have to hear your best friend sobbing like it was the end of the world after the BS you pulled! You haven't had to watch her try to piece together and make sense of the life she thought she would be living that was so cruelly torn away from her. You. Weren't. There. So, if you're planning or hoping to rekindle what you two had, if you want to get back in my good books, you had better go more than just above and beyond, because that's the only way I'd accept any of this."