Marcus huffs, pulling me out of my thoughts and back to him.
“What?”
“You’re still doing the lip-pursing thing that says you’re upset,” he says, motioning towards my mouth.
“I’mnotpursing my lips!” I argue back, not even sure why the insinuation that I would have such a ridiculous habit bothers me so much.
Maybe because there is nothing attractive about lips being all wrinkled and pursed up. Or the fact that it’s the expression most pearl-clutchers have whenever they judge me based on nothing more than a glance and their own assumptions and outdated opinions.
“Ah! But you didn’t deny that you’re upset about something,” Marcus points out unhelpfully, or helpfully, I guess, depending on which way I look at it.
Setting aside my internal thoughts about people’s ridiculous notions that other people’s forms of self-expression somehow affect them in any way, if ever there was gonna be an opening for the conversation I actually need to have with Marcus right now, it was that right there.
“No, I guess I didn’t.”
Marcus nods and searches my eyes. “Did I do something to make you mad?”
I roll my eyes at him because only his ego would have him automatically assuming that whatever bothers me somehow comes back to him. I mean,thisparticular time it does, but dammit, “Not everything revolves around you, Marcus,” I hiss the rest of my thoughts out loud at him.
Marcus’s brow furrows in confusion. “So it’s not about me?”
And I really wish it wasn’t about him. Not only because the subject sucks and it’s gonna hurt him, but also because his ego needs to find acorner to sit in and realize noteverythingis about him, even though this time it really is.Gawd, he’s so fucking annoying.
“Why would you think it’s about you?” I huff out, knowing I’m being irrationally irritated.
Marcus shrugs. “Because you’ve been side-eyeing me all night, and as much as I’d like to think it’s cuz you’re checking me out, the unhappy lip-pursing thing tells me I’m not that lucky,” he points out.
While part of me wants to kick myself in the ass at the realization that it wasme,andnothis ego that had him jumping to conclusions, the lip-pursing thing has me bristling again.
“I swear on your life, if you accuse me of pursing my lips one more time–” I start to huff out before Marcus barks a laugh at me.
“You’ll what?” he challenges me. “What will you do?”
I roll my eyes and flop back into the couch. “I’ll fucking think of something,” I grumble.
Marcus laughs and shakes his head. “I knew you had nothing, all bark and no bite.”
I raise an eyebrow. “No bite? Ask your finger about the no bite!”
“Touché,” Marcus snorts with amusement.
I roll my eyes, and we both grow quiet for a moment before Marcus leans in and nudges me with his shoulder.
“So–”
I sigh again and close my eyes while throwing my head back against the couch.
“I saw someone making out with someone else who is definitely not the first someone’s boyfriend.”
“Oh. Well, that’s pretty shitty,” Marcus responds in a tone that makes it obvious that he was not expecting that answer.
“Right?!?” I articulate emotionally. “And the boyfriend is a really amazing guy, and he doesn’t deserve that at all.”
Marcus nods slowly, his eyes locked on mine. “So are you going to tell him?”
“Well, I kind of feel like I need to because it would be shitty to keep it from him. But I really like him, which means I have a personal stakein it, so I feel like it’s shitty coming from me, you know,” I explain, watching his face to see what he thinks.
I don’t even know why I’m beating around the bush because there’s no way he could magically unencrypt that to know I’m talking about him and Imani.
