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I’m so close to squeezing this bottle into a million tiny little shards. I look over to Liam and see him still chumming it up with the mystery girl and feel my heart pulsing against my neck.
Part of me almost wants to ask how much they need, but I also don’t care. Why would I give them any money at all? Even if what they’re saying is true, I just don’t know if I should buy it. My mother hasn’t shown a ton of genuineness with me in a while, and I already felt hesitant about coming to this stupid dinner in the first place.
Besides, this isn’t the only problem I have on my hands right now, and I decide that it’s not a battle I want to fight currently. Instead, I’d rather fight the piece of shit still inappropriately touching a girl who isn’t his girlfriend.My Holli.
I clear my throat and release the grip I have on the empty bottle, pushing my chair back to stand. Maybe, giving them money will get her off my back. Maybe she’ll leave me alone and I can put all of my time focusing on the only thing that truly matters to me. Maybe, if I help her, she’ll look at me differently.
“I’ll need to go to the bank; I stopped carrying checks on me. You can text me how much you need toborrow,” I emphasize that last word, “and I can have it wired to your account.” Blank stares reach my obviously annoyed eyes and without another word, I drop a hundred on the table to cover this dinner that they obviously can’t afford and turn to head in the direction of Liam. But he’s gone.
So I head back out to my bike and take my ass to the only person I know I want to see right now.
nine
Hollis
I'mnotevenbothered.
The picture came through about twenty minutes ago and at first, I felt anger and disbelief—or at least that's what I thought I felt. But now, now I am just in shock—and I don't know if I trust that feeling either.
I haven’t shed a single tear. But the visual of Liam kissing another girl burns its imprint in my skull as I try to conjure up the sadness developed from whatshouldfeel like heartbreak.
It just doesn’t come.
The text came from Morgan. She’s a girl I met in college a few years ago and we’ve stayed in touch to talk about our mutual love for books here and there. She’s one of those girls that I can count on no matter how close we actually are because she’s a girl’s girl with a heart of fucking gold.
When she sent this to me, her text with it just said,
Hollis, please don't hate me for this. But I don't know how else to tell you, so I'll show you…
I appreciate that so much about her. Because I would have never known otherwise.
Or so I thought.
I’m a few minutes past my break, and I know I should put my phone away—or turn it off completely—and get back to the bar. I should forget about this for now and do my job like an adult. But instead, I just continue to stare at it.
Why don't I feel any pain from this?
I turn the phone away from me and think about what it means to have someone cheat on me. To have Liam cheat on me. I know the relationship has been one-sided for a while, and I know that he's been waiting for me to tell him I love him, but if this is his way of telling me to hurry the fuck up, I think he might have lost me completely.
I open up the photo one more time, trying to feel any kind of real pain or anger when my senses tingle for some strange reason as I walk out of the breakroom to cross the hall to the restroom, prompting me to lift my head up.
I see Jaxon walking through the front doors and straight toward the bar. I mentally huff because I don’t have time for this today, and he was doing so good leaving me alone these past few weeks.
But I see him head straight toward my boss, Sergio, who answers whatever question he asks; my boss looks at his watch then shrugs his shoulders. Jax seems persistent in whatever he’s asking about and that’s when they both look in my direction at the exact same time, and if I wasn’t already frozen while watching this interaction before, I am now.
I try to melt against the wall, realizing how stupid I must look trying to blend into it when they both can see me so clearly.
Jax points in my direction while asking my boss another question and Sergio shakes his head, but then Jax pulls out something that looks like a crisp Ben Franklin and my boss simply takes it, waves his hand my way and before I know it, Jax is mere feet in front of me. I don’t have time to move or think before he’s gripping me by the elbow.
“I need to talk to you,” he says in an austere tone. His rigid appearance makes the interaction that much more daunting only because I'm not used to seeing Jax in his bad boy era and demanding to be heard like this.
In the midst of the heartbreak Ishouldbe feeling, my breath hitches when I feel the unfamiliar swirl of heat in my center as he gently—though his grip feels tight around my elbow–yanks me off the wall.
“What the hell? Get off of me,” I protest quietly, and he leads us back into the breakroom.
I try to be steely in the way I talk to him, but between the photo I have on my phone and the way that Jax smells—which is like amber and smoke—I can’t even seem to focus on much else yet alone trying to be assertive.
“Hollis, I need to talk to you,” he states again, closing the door behind us.
