“What happened to you?”
Only what she’d predicted would happen.What Baz had fancied himself to be above happening.The prickling heat returned to Baz’s eyes.
“Aya.I know you’re mad at me, and you’re about to get a whole lot madder, but I need a friend before I lose my mind.Can we do that?Please?”
Aya dropped the pen she was holding.“Okay?”The worry in her tone pushed the tears higher.
“A-and I need you to not yell at me or I will cry, and that cannot happen.”Not here.He had suffered enough embarrassment today.
She nodded as she stood up and pointed at the couch in the corner of her office.Steps echoed on the other side of the glass walls—Baz had never despised them more, putting his pathetic breakdown on display.He wasn’t a zoo animal to be gawked at.He sank below the backrest, slinking into the hard cushion.
“What happened, Baz?”
He swallowed against the dryness in his mouth.“I developed feelings for Sami.”
The part of him that was relieved to finally admit it got immediately stabbed by the creeping doubt.
Aya closed her eyes.Sighed.
“I tried to stop talking to him!But we got along so well, a-and he listened, and he was there for me, and…” His throat closed shut, suffocating every one of his high-pitched words.
“And now what?Is he blackmailing you?”
“No!It’s Eevee.”
“Eevee is blackmailing you?”
“No.She told me Sami never finished law school.I looked it up.He isn’t licensed.”
“Oh.”Aya frowned.“What are you saying?He’s been impersonating a lawyer?That’s a felony, we can get him for that.”
Baz’s butchered heart screamed out as a new dagger rammed into it.It was always about the case, wasn’t it?
He wasn’t interested in reporting Sami or playing stupid games.He just wanted Sami, and he hadn’t even realized it until the fantasy got shattered.
“I’m saying he lied to me.”His voice came out as a whisper, meek to his own ears.
Every thought, every worry that had plagued Baz on the way over poured out of him, an endless waterfall he couldn’t stop if he wanted to.
Aya’s confusion faded into something much worse: pity.
Baz sank deeper into the couch.His body felt heavy as though his bones had turned into bags of rice.A tear squeezed through his closed lids.
“Is there any explanation for this that isn’t him using me to sabotage the case?”Baz pleaded—with Aya, with the universe, with whatever higher power that cared to listen.One that might send him a sign that he hadn’t been played.
But Aya’s face screamedoh habibi, how naive you are, her kindest way of telling him he was being stupid.Fuck.
He stretched his neck along the backrest of the couch, rubbed his eyes.“Go ahead.Tell me you told me so.”
“I agree this doesn’t sound good, but despite recent actions, you actually are a smart person.You were so sure he wasn’t spying on you.”
“Clearly, I was wrong.”
It wouldn’t be the first time, as Sami had so generously pointed out Friday.
What did all that mean now?Were those still the wise words of the kind and funny and genuinely lovable man who supported him that night?Or had Sami only said it so Baz would doubt himself and his perception?
“I really thought we were more than the case…”
