Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
“You can project any image you want on social media,” she insists.
“Why would he want you to think he’s happy with her if he wants you to be with him? That literally doesn’t make sense.”
There’s a knock at the door. Anae switches lanes like the psycho she is, smiling brightly. “Our first guest. Super lame to be the first guest.”
I watch as Anae walks to the front door. When she’s far enough away, I look back at Hannah. She’s still sitting on the couch, her gaze unfocused. She’s clearly somewhere else.
I sit down beside her and touch her thigh. “Hey, are you okay?”
Her gaze shifts to me. She nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“She’s crazy,” I remind her. “Like, legit crazy. She’s reading too much into things. There’s nothing there.”
“What if there is?”
I shake my head. “No way. He doesn’t want her. If he did, he’d be with her. She’s grasping at straws.”
“Not about that,” Hannah says. “He doesn’t want Anae. He’s not as interested in her as she is him, he never was. But some of the other stuff…”
I want to ask her to hurry up and spill before Anae comes back, but Hannah’s struggling a bit, so I give her time to find her words.
Her gaze drops and she swallows. “There are things I didn’t tell you about Dare. About prom night. He didn’t send her that message until the morning after prom. I ran into him and Aubrey at prom, obviously, that’s when he took my picture…”
I want to know what she held back, but before she can finish whatever she wants to tell me, Anae comes walking in with Brittany Benson.
Of course she’s the first one here.
I glance behind them to see if that means Landon is here, too, but she seems to be alone.
“Look who I found,” Anae says cheerfully, as if she’s actually happy to see the girl.
“I guess I’m a little early,” Brittany says, glancing at me. “Landon’s coming with Malek, so…”
I know two things can be true at the same time.
I know I can feel bad for this girl for the blatant insecurity and load of issues she exhibits by clinging to a guy who could not give fewer fucks about her, and still also dislike her a little bit more every time she mentions him.
It doesn’t sit right with me, though, so I try to shake it off.
I have already started down the path of being nice to her by inviting her to this party, so even if I only half mean it, I’m gonna keep going.
“Want to go pick out a lipstick?” I ask her.
She seems confused by my offer. Her gaze flits to Anae as if she’s a safe person to use as a gauge for whether she should follow me.
God, her instincts are trash.
Anae wants to be rid of her, so she nods enthusiastically and shoos her toward me. “For sure. I think you look like a yellow, personally.”
When we pulled the lipsticks out of the packs, Anae took one look at the yellows and pondered why they made such an ugly fucking shade. She said no one was going to pick that one, so of course she’s trying to pawn it off on Brittany.
And, of course, Brittany grabs a yellow without hesitation since Anae told her to.
I sigh and snatch a yellow as well, so at least she’s not the only one wearing the heinous shade.
Chapter Eleven
Parker
The party is in full swing which, of course, means the bathroom is always occupied. After what feels like the 14th time of trying the door and finding it locked, I head to the kitchen to complain.
Hannah is assembling a plate of cucumber roll-ups when I burst through the doors like Maleficent crashing a party she wasn’t invited to.
She glances back over her shoulder. Seeing it’s only me, she dismisses the show of drama and continues assembling snacks for Anae’s guests.
“Two things,” I say, holding up two fingers.
“What’s up?”
“One, I don’t know if you want to do anything about this, but Arden is getting a blow job in the library. He’s sitting in front of the fireplace in one of the wing chairs. He didn’t even bother to close the door.”
She rolls a thin slice of cucumber and secures it with a toothpick. “Well, tell him the girl better swallow because I’m not cleaning that up.”
“The second thing is that the bathroom down here is still occupied and my bladder is going to explode.”
“You can use one of the upstairs bathrooms, just take the back staircase so no one sees you go up. I’ll have enough clean-up to do when this party is over. I don’t need people making messes upstairs, too.”
That’s what I was leaning toward, I just wanted to clear it with her first because I intended to take the main staircase and knew people might see me go up.