Page 30 of How To Not Need You

Instead, I slip my phone back into my pocket and help Tilly rescue her portrait after she'd somehow manages to glue half the glitter in South Australia onto one corner.

She chatters happily while I work. I nod along. But my mind keeps drifting back to his words. When the afternoon finally winds down, Tilly hugs me so enthusiastically she leaves another streak of purple paint across my shirt.

"We're doing this every Friday forever."

I laugh. "We'll see."

"We are." Apparently that's settled. I wave goodbye to the teachers, pack away my prints and carry my now considerably lighter tote bag out to the car. Only once I've started the engine do I glance at my phone again.

Most men would have texted that I looked beautiful. Or found some way to turn the whole afternoon into flirting.

Jake chose something else.

You're good at this.

Not how I looked. Not whether he wanted me. Just something he'd noticed while watching me be myself.

I stare at the message for another second.

Fuck.

That's somehow harder to ignore.

Chapter

Six

Jake

I check my reflection for the third time in ten minutes and still don’t quite believe the man looking back at me is me.

The dark blue shirt is the right call. I’m sure of it. Or I was sure of it five minutes ago, before I changed out of the grey henley, which felt too casual, and the flannel I dismissed immediately as “too much, too Jake from three years ago.” The blue one is clean. It has buttons. I even ironed it. I ironed a shirt for a woman I haven’t even kissed yet, which is either pathetic or romantic depending on which of my friends you ask.

Ben would say pathetic. Noah would nod approvingly. Tilly would ask why I’m wearing a shirt with buttons when buttons are “the worst invention ever except for maybe broccoli.”

But Tilly isn’t here. The house is quiet in the way it only gets when she’s at Megan’s. Like the house itself is bracing for her to come charging back through the door, trailing glitter and half a peanut butter sandwich and whatever small creature she’s decided to befriend that week. I'm used to noise. I prefer it, honestly. Quiet makes me restless.

It probably doesn't help that Tilly managed to convince me to adopt a cat three years ago. We found him behind the fire station after someone reported hearing a kitten crying from inside a storm drain. He was filthy, hungry, and so tiny he fit inside one of my turnout gloves. We'd taken him to the local rescue, fully intending to leave him there. That didn’t happen.

She named him Hades after a brief obsession with Greek mythology, convinced it was the perfect name for a tiny black kitten. Unfortunately, Hades has spent the last three years living up to it. He adores Tilly with unwavering devotion.

Me?

He tolerates my existence in the same way most people tolerate telemarketers. I buy the food. I pay the vet bills. I clean the litter tray. Somehow, I'm still the villain. As if on cue, Hades strolls into the room, fixes me with a look of utter disappointment and deliberately walks around my legs instead of between them. I’m sure that’s an insult in cat language.

"Hello to you too, mate."

He blinks once. Then jumps onto Tilly's favourite chair, curls into a ball and pointedly goes to sleep.

Tilly insists Hades loves me.

I seriously doubt that.

With a sigh I turn back to the mirror. My jaw is freshly shaved. There’s a faint trace of aftershave in the bathroom, something woodsy that I almost never wear because Tilly complains it “smells like trees, Dad, and trees are for outside.” But tonight felt like a trees kind of night. Or a date kind of night. Same thing, apparently.

I pick up my phone from the edge of the sink. The screen lights up with our text thread, and I don’t even try to stop the smile.

Liv: If you’re late I’ll assume you’ve been kidnapped by Luca.