“No.You’ve had enough.You’re going to feel like death tomorrow as it is.”
The sudden lack of alcohol, the cutting of my numbing agent, made the pain rush back in, sharp and immediate.The ‘I don’t care’ act evaporated.My eyes welled up, and I didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.I slumped against the couch, letting the tears fall.“He made me feel like I was nothing,” I choked out.
Shay and Felix exchanged a look over my head.The teasing from before was gone, replaced by a grim solidarity.They were my wingmen, my brothers.And one of their own had been hurt.
Shay sighed, his anger softening into a determined resolve.He put the bottle back on the table and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder.“Alright, listen up, you pathetic loser.We’re not letting some suit in a five-thousand-dollar haircut do this to you.He doesn’t get to make you feel like this.”
I looked up at him, my vision blurry.“What are you gonna do?Challenge him to a duel?”
“Better,” Shay said, a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face.It was the look he got right before he did something that would get us all fined.“We’re gonna make him jealous.”
A wild, reckless spark ignited in my chest.It was a terrible idea.It was a catastrophic idea.But in my drunk, heartbroken state, it sounded like pure genius.
“How?”I whispered.
Chapter 11
“How?”Felix echoed, his tone dripping with skepticism.“Shay, this is a terrible idea.This is how people get traded to minor league teams in Siberia.”
“No, no, hear me out,” Shay said, his eyes alight with chaotic inspiration.“The guy is all about control, right?He’s ice.He doesn’t do messy.So, we show him that Charlie is fine.That he’s moving on.That he’s having a great time without Mr.Billionaire Business Meeting.”
The spark flared into a full-blown, alcohol-soaked inferno.Yes.I wanted Henry to lose that infuriating control.I wanted him to feel a fraction of the messy, chaotic hurt I was feeling.
“He told me not to be dramatic,” I slurred, a new, dangerous energy coursing through me.“Let’s be dramatic.”
“That’s the spirit!”Shay cheered, grabbing his phone.“Okay, we need a photo.Something that looks...intimate.Fun.Like you’re not sitting here crying into a cheap beer.”
My drunken brain latched onto the most intimate, most dramatic thing it could conceive.I turned to Shay, the room swaying gently.“Kiss me.”
Shay froze, his phone halfway to camera mode.“What?”
“Kiss me,” I repeated, the words sounding both insane and perfectly logical.“Take a picture.Send it to him.Let him see that I’m...I’m not waiting around.That someone else wants me.”
Felix put his head in his hands.“I’m going to be cleaning locker rooms for the rest of my career.”
Shay, however, looked from my desperate, tear-streaked face to his phone, and a slow grin spread across his.He was always a sucker for a terrible plan.“You know what?Fuck it.For the team.But if any of this gets out, we tell everyone it was for a charity dare.”
