Page 25
“There is no butter dish,” I say flatly. She acts as if I haven’t spoken. Or like maybe I’m so backward that I don’t know what a butter dish is.
“Ginny,” she says sweetly. “Do you know where I can find a butter dish?”
“I’ll look,” says Ginny eagerly, dropping her strawberries entirely and going on a wild goose chase in pursuit of something she knows the house doesn’t have. “I’m so sorry,” she finally says. “I guess we don’t have one.”
I’ll just use a saucer,” sighs Allison. She opens the refrigerator and turns to me sourly. “Where’s the juice?”
“I don’t know if we have any,” I reply.
“You don’t have juice?” she asks, her tone rife with accusation. “What exactly do you have?”
Before I can say anything, James speaks up. “Allison,” he warns. “Cut it out.”
She freezes, and the color leaches from her skin. “I’m going for a walk,” she says suddenly. She turns to Ginny. “Do you want to come with me?”
Ginny is giving me a dirty look. What. The. Hell?
“Yes,” she says. “I’m not feeling all that hungry anymore.”
“I assume it’s safe to leave you with my boyfriend this time?” asks Allison, with a bitter smile.
“Allison,” says James, and there is no longer flexibility in his voice. “That’s enough.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she says. “It’s only married men she seduces.”
James lays his head back against his seat after she walks out, as if he’s exhausted.
“Dude,” says Max. “What the fuck is going on?”
“My sister is a pain in the ass,” says Dan. “That’s what’s going on.”
“No,” says James. “She got the wrong idea last night about something and now she’s losing her shit over it.”
“Got the wrong idea about what?” asks Max.
James glances at me swiftly before his eyes drift shut again. “She’s threatened by Elle.”
“As well she should be,” quips Max. “No woman wants to walk in and find her boyfriend sharing a house with a freaking model, especially one with a rack like Elle’s.”
“Shut up, Max,” says James.
“Tell me where I’m wrong,” he argues.
I scrape the waffle I haven’t even touched into the trash. “I’m out of here.”
“Where are you going?” asks James.
“Elsewhere,” I say. “I’ll be back when she’s gone.”
The truth is that the whole situation is making me sick. Allison’s dislike. The way she views me, through that same lens the people in my office did: as some kind of man-stealing slut. Max agreeing. And perhaps worst of all, Ginny, my supposed best friend, and her complete defection to the other side. She didn’t try to defend me in the least.
**
I get upstairs, planning to call Kristy, but I haven’t even found my phone before there’s a knock on the door.
“Come in?” I say, a question in my voice. My first thought is that it’s Allison, because none of the guys ever come to our room — one of many dire warnings laid out by James — and Ginny wouldn’t knock.
James steps in, filling the entire frame of the door. “Can I talk to you?” he asks.
