“Get off of me!” I cry.
I hear the front door open and my heart drops.
“Just give it to me,” Nick demands.
“Oh, dude, sorry man.” Drew’s voice confirms my worst fear. “Didn’t know you were entertaining. I just forgot my notebook, I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
Nick must have found the remote under me in the struggle, because when he sits up he has it in hand. And he’s smirking.
“No worries, CJ and I were just … talking,” Nick says slyly.
I sit up, pulling at my now disheveled clothing, shoving at Nick and rising from the couch. When I turn, Drew stands there, his face a mask, his eyes darting between me and Nick.
Silence fills the apartment for longer than I can bear.
“I swear, it’s not what it looks like,” I finally say.
Nick saunters up to me and slings an arm around my shoulder.
“It’s okay, baby, I think it’s time we told him.”
I look at Nick in horror just in time to see Drew’s fist connect with his face.
Chapter Seventeen
DREW
I know it wasn’t the smartest thing to do even before the blood starts pouring out of Nick’s shattered nose. But how was I supposed to react to finding my girl underneath my asshole-of-the-century roommate?
“You broke my fucking nose,” Nick screeches, his hands flying to his face. He pales considerably when he pulls his hand away to see it covered in blood.
“Yeah, I did. And you better get out of here before I break something else, you fucking asshole,” I grind out through my teeth. I’m sure I look like hell’s fury incarnate, because he only shoots me an angry look before charging into the bathroom.
I open and close my fist, knowing I’m going to feel that when the adrenaline wears off. I turn on CJ and my anger melts into disappointment. Fuck my fist, now it feels like a knife has sliced my heart open.
“Don’t even tell me I shouldn’t have punched him,” I say angrily, trying to rile myself back to that state. Anything but this godawful despair.
“No, he deserved it,” she says quietly. She looks so nervous though.
“So is this one of those things I didn’t know about you? You and Nick? Behind my back?”
“God, no,” she says urgently, going to reach for me, then withdrawing when I take a step back. “No, we really were just talking. And then he wouldn’t listen to me because he was watching TV, so I took the remote, and he was trying to wrestle it back from me, and then —”
God, she’s rambling. That’s not a good sign.
“Talking about what?” I ask tightly.
Her eyes go wide and she puts her hand over her mouth. Another bad sign.
“Just … nothing,” she says lamely.
On top of the obvious signs of her lying, my intuition tingles that she’s hiding something. It’s the first time I’ve had reason to doubt her, but it makes me realize I know she’s been hiding something. Now I understand why I was scared she wasn’t as into me as I was her; on some level I knew something was … off. I just never dreamed it was an affair with my jackass roommate.
“You’ve got to do better than that,” I goad her.
She drops her hand, looking like she’s about to say something, but shakes her head. I feel my face fall, and her eyes fill with tears.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says quietly. “But I’m not involved with Nick, I promise you.”
I tip my head back and let out a harsh laugh. I look back at her and shake my head.
“Is this because I wouldn’t talk about Amber? Are you trying to get back at me by fucking him?” I ask.
“No,” she responds vehemently. “God, no. I would never, Drew, please believe me.”
“Then tell me what you were talking about,” I insist.
Her mouth opens and closes several times. Anger wells in me, mixing with the despair, and I know I’m done here. I can’t do this. Especially not right now.
I walk out of the room and she makes a strangled little noise behind me. I fish my notebook out of my nightstand drawer and grip it hard. I take a deep, steadying breath. And I lock everything down.
Work. Sleep. That’s what I’ll be now. I won’t leave room for anything else.
My resolve set, I head back to the door. She’s still standing exactly where I left her, now with tears streaming down her face. It almost affects me, but I pull on the leash of my emotions again.
“I’m late for work. You can go back to … whatever you were doing,” I tell her flatly. And then I leave.
I’m numb the whole way to work. Scott gives me shit for being late, but I barely even hear him. I get in the zone and shut everything out for the rest of the day. I’m too focused to even be much of an asshole, though I really feel like letting out some of the boiling rage I’ve got trapped under the surface. But I know that’ll just open Pandora’s box, so I don’t.
I take my time with shutting down the kitchen that night, doing a lot of duties I normally leave to others. So I don’t get home until almost two a.m.
I turned my phone off when I left the apartment, when I left her … I don’t turn it back on. I take the world’s shortest shower, then go to sleep.
Once I’m up the next day, I know I’m going to have to deal with reality, at least a little. I do need my phone, so turning it back on was inevitable. Just as I thought, there are texts and a voicemail from CJ.
I don’t even think about them; I just block her number from my phone. She had a chance to defend herself, and she had nothing but empty words and pleas for trust.
Why would Nick lie about something between them? He’s even said it himself. He’s a lot of things, an asshole first and foremost, but he wouldn’t lie to me. Though he’s an asshole who would definitely sleep with my girl, because lord knows he’s done it before. But if he was going to lie, wouldn’t it be in the other direction, that he wasn’t sleeping with her? Besides, her explanation for why she was under Nick on the couch while he was almost completely naked makes no sense.
I shake my head, resolving to get serious about finding a new place to live. I sure as fuck don’t want to walk back in on the two of them again.
To that end, I catch up with Ken, my buddy from culinary school who just did the pop-up restaurant, and he offers me his couch until I’m able to find another situation. So I use my day off to remove all of my clothes and personal effects from the apartment and relocate before Nick gets back.
I haven’t seen him since Sunday, thank fuck, and I hope to never see him again. Especially not … no, I’m not even going to think about her anymore.
On the following Tuesday afternoon, I’m in the office off the main kitchen going over the latest Thanksgiving dinner supplies delivery when someone knocks on the door.
“What?” I call without looking up.
“Something upstairs needs your attention,” I hear Anna say.
I look up sharply.
“We don’t have any events up there tonight.”
“I know.” She looks at me impatiently and rolls her eyes. “Just go. There’s something on the balcony for you.”