by Hazel Kelly
“Ten minutes maybe? I got him a drink and we joked about Tinder, and then I came in here to wash off my face mask because it was freaking him out.”
“What do you mean you joked about Tinder?”
“We just talked about what a bitch Chelsea was basically.”
I swallowed. “What exactly did you say?”
“Just that he must’ve been pissed when he found out she was on it while they were going out, and I said if Peter-”
I covered my face with my hands.
“What?”
“He doesn’t know she was on it,” I said.
“Sure he does.”
“I never told him.”
“But he knew she was-”
“Cheating. He knew she was cheating. That’s it.” I sighed. “As far as I know, he had no idea she was on Tinder.”
“But-”
I walked over and put my hands on her shoulders. “I need you to think very carefully.”
Her eyes went wide.
“I’m not upset, okay? I just need to know what you said.”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t know. I-”
“Did you say that we saw her on a date?”
She nodded.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose. “Did you say she came up on Alex’s phone?”
She swallowed.
“Did you?”
She nodded.
I let go of her shoulders and left the room.
“Lucy?!” she called after me.
I turned back and went in her room, grabbing the vodka off her dresser.
“I’m sorry!”
“You are so done.”
“I didn’t mean to-”
I turned to face her. “What? Fuck this up for me? Hurt my best friend?”
“It was an accident.”
“No surprise there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just leave me alone.” I walked across the hall and swung my bedroom door shut behind me.
Then I slumped on my bed and tried to call him again. He didn’t pick up. I fell back on my bed and dug the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. Fuck.
Just as well he didn’t answer. What would I even say? I was going to tell you that night, but you’d broken up with her anyway?
He would never believe me. He would never understand how torn up I was over it. And now it didn’t matter anyway because it was too late.
Now I was just as bad as Chelsea, keeping secrets from him and being deceitful. Except this was worse. I was supposed to be the person he could trust the most. I pretended to be anyway, and what did I do when I had a chance to protect him?
I kept my mouth shut. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I wasn’t. Now it was so obvious. If I could just go back and do it all over again, I could’ve told him when I knew she wasn’t at the nursing home. At the very least, I could’ve called him when she popped up on Alex’s phone.
What was I thinking?
How could I do this to him? I tried to imagine the scale of his anger, or worse, his hurt. What if he’d done this to me? What if he’d let my boyfriend make a fool of me and not told me I was getting played?
It was impossible to imagine.
Because he never would’ve done that.
He would never hurt me that way. Not by omission, and not on purpose.
I rolled onto my stomach and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped it would vibrate in my hand. I needed to hear his voice. I needed to know he wasn’t mad at me, that he knew I never meant to lie to him.
I was so sorry I could feel it in my bones.
And I wanted to be mad at Fiona for being a ditzy, drunk blabbermouth, but it wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I’m the one that didn’t tell him Chelsea was cheating on him, and I should’ve told him as soon as I found out.
She wasn’t his best friend. She didn’t owe him anything. She didn’t grow up with him. She didn’t even know what it was like to have a friend as loyal as he was.
And now I had gone and royally fucked up our friendship just because I couldn’t say what was difficult.
Except it wasn’t our friendship that I’d fucked up.
It was our budding romance.
And now what?
Now he was probably thinking I was just another girl who dicked him around and couldn’t be trusted, another girl that was as fake and selfish as the rest of them.
And I knew him well enough to know that forgiveness didn’t come easy to him. He would never forget that I’d done this, even if he could pretend to.
But it wasn’t over yet. Maybe we could fix this. We’d been through tough times in the past.
And it always worked out when it was us against the world.
Maybe he would understand.
Maybe he could forgive me even if he couldn’t forget.
This couldn’t be it.
If only he would answer his phone.
Chapter 18: Aiden
I had to leave.
I couldn’t face Lucy. I was too embarrassed. Too furious.
And as far as Fiona, she said more than enough in the few minutes we spoke.
I pulled the car into my parking spot and turned off the ignition. But I didn’t get out. I just sat there, gripping the wheel like I had all the way home.
My phone buzzed on the passenger seat. It was Lucy again. I let it ring out. I wasn’t ready to talk to her.
What was there to say?
I knew my anger was beyond explanation, that what happened with Chelsea was in the past, but I thought Lucy was the only woman that had never lied to me. Even my Mom and my sister had lied to me hundreds of times, but that was different. That was family. I was stuck with them, but I had chosen her.
And she was the last person on Earth who I ever thought would make a fool out of me like this.
I felt like a fucking idiot!
How many times had I defended Chelsea to her or bit my tongue instead of bad mouthing her to Lucy? Too many to count! And every time, Lucy just listened politely, nodding and pursing her lips, probably thinking about what a pathetic schmuck I was.
And she didn’t even like Chelsea! That much had been perfectly clear since the first time I introduced them. So why protect her? Why guard her secrets and let her keep parading around town making a fool out of me?
It was unforgivable.
I turned to the phone and waited to see if she would leave a message, but the beep never came. No surprise there. What could she say?
I’m sorry?
It wouldn’t even mean anything because I’d know she was just sorry I found out, sorry Fiona spilled the beans.
And that was the other thing. It wasn’t even like Lucy was the only one who knew! She and Fiona probably fucking laughed about how lame and trusting I was, joking about my bitch of a girlfriend while she continued to bleed my bank account dry and fuck strangers while I thought she was volunteering?!
Did everyone know but me?!
I mean, how many guys had swiped my girlfriend while we’d been dating. I straightened my arms and pushed my head back against the seat. I felt sick.
Being reminded that Chelsea was a cheating bitch was one thing, but finding out that my best friend knew the scale of her deceit and didn’t tell me was a blow my ego couldn’t take. What was it that Fiona had said? They saw her out with some other guy?
Why didn’t Lucy call me that second?
Even a text would’ve done.
Shit. If the situation had been reversed, I would’ve taken a goddamn picture and sent it to her. By the time she got it, I would’ve already beaten the shit out of the guy that was fucking her around and left him for dead.
Cause I was fucking loyal. Perhaps to a fault.
And I thought Lucy was, too, but maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe she was no different from all the other lying bitches I’d been with over the years.
Even Alex knew. What a joke.
The kid used to look up to me and now he probably thought I was some loser that willingly let his girlfriend’s fuck around and didn’t care who knew about it.
The phone rang again and I turned it over so I could see her face on the screen. It was a picture of her smiling with icing on her nose. I took it at my last birthday party, the one she helped Chelsea plan. Maybe they were fucking friends after all. Maybe I couldn’t read either of them, and they only pretended they didn’t get along.
I didn’t even know anymore.
All I knew was that everything I was excited about, everything I had planned, felt like it had been pissed away to nothing.
And it hurt so much worse than breaking up with Chelsea. Cutting ties with her had been relatively neat and tidy. But my life and my memories weren’t all tangled up in hers going back as far as I could remember.
Losing Lucy made my heart ache and my head hurt at the same time. I hadn’t felt that kind of pain in ages. Normally when a woman dropped out of my life, she was the first person I called.
Cause she always knew how to take my mind off things.
But now I had no one to turn to.
And even if calling her would make it better, she wasn’t the person I thought she was. She was still gorgeous, still sexy, still funny as hell.
But I couldn’t trust her.
And she wasn’t loyal.
So what was the fucking point?
I grabbed my phone and got out of the car, slipping it in my back pocket as I walked to the basement elevator. Normally, I was too impatient to wait for it, but now I just pressed the button and sighed.
Earlier, I was so excited to see Lucy that I took the stairs two at a time all the way down to the parking garage, drifting through stale yellow lights all the way to her place. I’d been dying to see her, to hold her. I’d been in the biggest hurry of my life.
And for what? To kiss her lying mouth? To kiss a mouth that told me what I wanted to hear and nothing that was inconvenient? What was the point of her being the sunniest part of my life if it was all a lie?
Fuck it.
My whole life people sucked up to me because of who my Dad was or because I was the coach’s pet. Or worse, they tiptoed around me because I was a useful, generous friend to have.
But not Lucy. She was one of the only people that didn’t just tell me what I wanted to hear. She told me when I was being a dick, when I was taking the easy way out. She told me when I was being too hard on myself or not hard enough, as rare as that was. She was the last person on Earth whose loyalty I would’ve questioned.
I would’ve bet everything that she would’ve done anything to protect me. And why wouldn’t I? She always had. That was the deal. We protected each other. Us against the world.
And now us was just me, and the sense of loss I felt was overwhelming and heavy, like I was lying under a wet mattress.
I stepped onto the elevator and hit the button for my floor, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall.
How could she say she was worried about preserving our friendship when she’d been lying to me for weeks?
I stepped onto my floor and walked to my door.
My apartment felt strangely empty, like it, too, had been expecting me to return home with a guest.
And suddenly, it filled up again with the sound of my ringing phone.
I sighed. “What do you want?” I asked, disappointed at how defeated I sounded but too tired to change my tone.
“I’m so sorry, Aiden.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
“Can we talk?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“I’ll do the talking.”
I exhaled through my nose.
“Please.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Of course not.”
I shook my head. “Well, I feel like one.”
“But you’re-”
“You made a fucking fool out of me, Lucy.”
“No I didn-”
“Yes you did.”
“Give me a chance to explain.”
“I don’t want to see you right now.”
“I understand that, Aiden, but I need to talk to you.”
I clenched my jaw.
“When can I see you?”
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No thanks,” I said.
“Will you call me when you’re ready to talk?”
I shook my head. “Don’t hold your breath.”
Thanks
Thank you for taking the time to read this story.
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To find out what’s next for Aiden and Lucy, check out the next book in the Fated Series,
Fighting for my Best Friend
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Happy Reading,
Xo Hazel
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