I knew I should pretend to do something on my phone, or leave the room, or do anything other than sit there and stare at them, but I couldn’t move.
“Yeah, sure. Yeah, it can wait.” She smiled. “Go get back to it. I’ll make everyone a plate and then come help.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, kissing her cheek once more before jogging back over to take a seat on the floor next to Shayla. They bent their heads together, pointing at something on her screen and talking numbers.
And finally, B looked at me.
My jaw tightened, possessiveness and a love so deep I couldn’t fully reach it consuming me as I tried to read her expression. She was sad, that much I could garner. But there was something else there.
I couldn’t figure it out before she tore her gaze from mine.
And then I realized I didn’t give a fuck if Ethan found out this way — I had to know what was going on.
In the next breath, I was up out of my chair and standing behind her in the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
She jumped a little, but didn’t turn to look at me as she retrieved a stack of plates from the cabinets.
“Making tacos. Want some?”
“Don’t play dumb, you’ve never been good at it.”
“Because you know me so well.”
“I do,” I said loudly, not caring who heard, and I grabbed her wrist before she could reach for the taco shell and keep pretending like she didn’t see me.
We both glanced up at Ethan and Shayla, but they were deep in their own conversation over the laptop.
“I do fucking know you,” I said again, lowering my voice this time. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“B,” I pleaded, but she tugged her wrist from my grip.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine,” I deadpanned.
She sighed, piling the first shell with grilled chicken before dropping it to a plate and facing me.
She was absolute stone when she answered, “Yep. Are you going to help me with these or not? Because otherwise you’re kind of in the way right now.”
Okay, now I was past confused.
I was pissed.
And I wanted to know exactly what the hell she was doing.
I let out a sharp laugh. “That’s fine, I don’t mind being in the way. Seems to be my favorite place to be, actually.”
B glared at me.
“What’s gotten into you?” I asked, wondering where my soft surfer girl from the night before was now. “Did I do something?”
“Why would you think that?”
I scoffed, crossing my arms before I stepped into her space. “Oh, I don’t know, less than thirty hours ago you were forcing my hand between your thighs, and now you won’t even look at me? Yeah, maybe that.”
“Shhh!” she whisper-screamed, eyes wide as she glanced at Ethan before her glare found me again. “Stop. It was a mistake.”
Her words hit me like a slap to the face, and my neck snapped back with the force.
“A mistake,” I repeated.
“We were both vulnerable, it was a heavy moment. Shit happens.”
“Shit hap—”
I couldn’t even finish the sentence. Bile rose in my throat as I threw my hands up, raking them through my hair before clasping them to rest on my head.
This isn’t her.
This isn’t what she means.
I forced a calming breath, knowing this was a wall she was putting up, and I had to be careful trying to climb it, lest she add another ten feet to it before I got the chance to climb over the top of it.
I let my hands fall to my sides again. “What are you even saying right now? Do you hear yourself?” I asked her, my brows folding in ward. “Do you see yourself? You’re shaking, B.”
Her bottom lip trembled with that, and I tried to reach for her, tried to find that connection that I knew would get her back to her right self.
But she backed away, hitting the counter in an effort to stay away from me.
“I see just fine, thank you. Well enough to see that whatever happened the other night clearly didn’t stop you from shacking up with Tina yesterday.”
Her eyes were hard when they met mine, and I balked, confused.
“What? Tina?”
“It’s fine, Jamie. I saw you two together, but it’s okay. What happened with us… it didn’t mean anything to me either.”
My heart thundered in my chest.
It didn’t mean anything.
“So we’re cool,” she finished. “Like I said, shit happens.”
B went back to plating the tacos like the conversation was done.
Like we were done.
Part of me was absolutely gutted. I felt like she’d taken a rusty blade and shoved it right between my ribs into my lungs, depriving me of a clean breath.
It hurt.
God, it hurt to hear her say those words.
But it also pissed me the fuck off.
Because I knew, even then, that she was lying.
“Wow,” I finally breathed, shaking my head as I moved in closer. I invaded her space, noting how she stiffened when my breath hit her ear. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but if this is really how you feel, I’m glad your twisted little mind made this shit up to make you feel better about it.”
With that, I pushed off the counter and stormed to my room, slamming the door behind me.
• • •
I was still seeing red when I made it to the bonfire later that night, alcohol already swimming deep and warm in my system. I’d started drinking as soon as B left our dorm that afternoon, and I hadn’t stopped since.
But I’d taken my time getting to the party, debating going at all since I knew she’d be there. Call me a masochist or the most lovesick sonofabitch to ever live, but even after what she’d said, even after how she’d acted — I had to see her.
A sick part of me hoped I could get her alone, that I could somehow get her to talk to me. And maybe the beer gave me confidence that her hearing me out would change everything.
Regardless, all of my plans went out the window when I finally got to the party.
Because Jenna was there.
And suddenly, a new plan had formed.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jenna said, staring at me like she’d seen a ghost as I approached her and B at one of the benches on the other side of the fire.
I’d spotted B’s hair from across the party, chest tightening, but I never stopped moving toward her. It wasn’t until I was halfway to her that I realized who she was with.
“Jamie?!” Jenna cried, shaking her head and laughing as she launched herself into my arms. She was so much like the girl I’d dated in high school, and yet she carried herself differently, enough for me to know that college had changed her, too.
B ignored me just like she had earlier, sipping her flask with her eyes focused somewhere else.
“What the hell? What are you doing here?” Jenna asked me when I released her.
I laughed. “What do you mean? I go to school here.”
Jenna’s jaw dropped, and she turned from me to B. “What? Oh my God, B, how did you never tell me Jamie went to the same school as you?”
It was my turn to look at her, and fuck did it hurt when I did. I could tell just by one glance that she was far from okay. Her eyes were bloodshot, glazed, her skin pallid.