Page 36 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

“I don’t have a boss, but I still get bossed around by my girlfriend.” Pippa elbows Ryan in the side, and I could kiss him for distracting her. I should know better than to be careless texting Beau in public. I let Giulia and Alessandra get to me, making me forget how cautious I need to be.

“You love being bossed around by me,” Pippa teases.

“Right,” Eden says. “Being submissive doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

Luke chokes on the water he’s sipping, and Ryan thumps him on the back.

“Relax, man,” Ryan says. “You don’t have to start picturing me in a collar and ball gag. It’s not my thing, unless Pippa wants it to be.”

“I’ll pass,” Pippa says dryly.

Down the table, Beau laughs at something and Giulia touches his arm. I have the sudden urge to punch a wall as hard as I can. Under the table, Eden grabs my hand.

“I think you need to drink more wine,” she whispers.

“I think I’ll need a lobotomy to forget this whole night.”

She refills my glass with the bottle in the center of the table. “Next best thing.”

The rest of the dinner goes by quickly, mostly because I decide to turn the night into a drinking game. When Giulia says something to make Beau smile, I drink. When she flirtatiously plays with her long dark hair, I drink. When Alessandra smirks like she’s made the match of the century, I drink.

I drink enough that I’m stumbling a little when Eden makes the executive decision that it’s time for us to go home. She guides me to the front of the restaurant to get my coat, her hand on my shoulder the only thing keeping me from stumbling sideways into a potted plant.

“Your arm goes in this hole,” Eden offers helpfully as she holds my light coat up for me.

“I know where my arms go, Eden.”

“No, you don’t, because you’re trying to punch through the bottom of your pocket.”

“Oh.”

Then three very beautiful Italians glide toward me. Beau is escorting Giulia and his mother to the door, and I know I can’t watch. I know Giulia’s going to kiss him on the cheek goodbye. It will be very Italian, and it will make me throw up the entire contents of my stomach, which at this point is mostly red wine.

It’s not exactly dignified when I snatch my coat out of Eden’s hands and power walk away, but it’s the only way I’m going to avoid watching Beau and Giulia say goodbye.

Eden catches up with me quickly. She lets me walk for a block before she makes an attempt at chatting.

“Do you want to⁠—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Eden stays silently at my side as we walk home. She doesn’t push, and I’m reminded for the hundredth time how lucky I am to have her as a friend. The cool evening air feels good against my heated face and I start slowly to sober up. I’m able to put my coat on without Eden’s help.

Finally, we make it back to my apartment building and trudge up the stairs. It’s only after I close the door behind us that the tears finally fall. They spill from my eyes in thick rivulets and I wipe them away on my coat sleeve.

“His mom looked r-right through me,” I stammer. “Like I was f-furniture.”

“That’s only because she doesn’t know,” Eden says.

That just makes the tears flow faster. “Exactly.”

Eden folds me into a tight hug, letting me bury my face into her shoulder. Angry tears slide down my cheeks and into her soft white sweater. We stand like that for a very long time as I let it all hit me.

I’m not angry with Alessandra for not seeing me. I’m mad at the situation that makes her ignorance possible. I’m mad at myself for agreeing to it. I’m mad at Beau for never fighting to change it.

And underneath all of it, in a place I don’t let myself look at too often, I’m fourteen again—standing in a room where no one thought I was worth protecting, learning that I’m the kind of girl people look through.