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I zipped myself up then looked at her. She looked beautiful, of course. But she also looked troubled. Rattled. Karson was doing that. “You’re crazy, you know that, right?”
“Of course, I know that, but I’m working on living a life worthy of a fabulous, bestselling autobiography.” She stood up, moving to snatch up a pair of heels that went perfectly with my dress. “No sane or boring woman gets that,” she continued after I took them from her. “All the most boring men do, of course. We have to work much harder to be immortalized in print.” She winked. “I bet quite the story could be penned from you and Jay.”
Something cold settled in my , and my smile left my face. “No, Jay and I aren’t a story. We’re an arrangement, remember?” I hated how pathetic and lovesick I sounded. How doomed. I hated that Wren’s eyes immediately softened, and she reached out to squeeze my hands.
“You are so much more than that,” she said quietly. “I know he’s some badass with a lump of coal instead of a heart, and he’s like in to some scary shit with some kind of past that’s made him incapable of human emotion, but he’s got you, Stells. There’s someone for everyone. And I think you’re his someone. You love so much, so easily, it’s like the perfect remedy for his lack of it.”
I stared at my friend, shocked she saw so much, understood more about my relationship than I did. There was nothing I could say to her. I didn’t have the words. But luckily, Wren was done with the deep and meaningful stuff.
“I don’t know how you only spend two days with him,” Wren sighed, eyes faraway. “You’re having the best sex of your life. And although I may not know what it feels like to have sex with Jay, I do know what the best sex of my life is like because I’m currently having it, and I’m ... addicted.” She took her drink and drained it. “I swear. Karson is my heroin. I need to have access to the high at all times. It’s already bad enough that he has these crazy villain hours. How do you handle it with Jay?”
Wren spoke of her relationship with ease. With good-natured humor. With an ownership over it that I would never have with Jay. I wasn’t jealous of her, because I loved her so very much. Because I liked the way that her eyes lit up when she talked about Karson. I liked how he was with her. Like he was ready to jump in front of a bus or a bullet if need be. Like she was precious. At the same time, he challenged her. He didn’t indulge her. I liked everything about that. Loved it.
So no, I wasn’t jealous.
“When I’m with Jay, it’s like he’s scooping out my insides,” I explained. “Like he’s taking everything from me. I think I need those other five days in order to fill myself back up.”
Wren blinked up me. “Girl, that is so fucked up.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Well, let’s get drunk, dance to bad music and do our best to forget about our troubles. At least for the night.”
And that’s what we did.
Though my troubles followed me.
“How are things going with Jay?” Zoe asked.
We were out shopping in Santa Monica. We’d gone to some trendy new café for brunch and were hopped up on triple shot lattes and ready to spend outrageous amounts of money on scented candles and cushions.
I didn’t miss the way she said Jay’s name. It was almost a sneer. She’d been my biggest cheerleader when this first began. She would always be my biggest cheerleader, but she knew me too well. She’d seen how much Jay had changed me. Tortured me over these past few months. Zoe was a hard ass. She didn’t do emotions well, and she was never going to be the first person to have a heart to heart. But she loved me. With all of her being. Just like I loved her. And if I saw her twisted up in knots over a man who called the shots in her life, I’d likely sneer his name too.
I wanted to comfort Zoe. Wanted to tell her that I was okay. But I wasn’t. And she wouldn’t have believed my lies.
“It’s never going to work, of course,” I replied.
Zoe frowned at me, something she rarely did because she was diligent about policing her facial expressions.
“I am very sure that my friend Stella is a hopeless romantic and general optimist. She wouldn’t say anything like that.”
I picked up a scented candle, smelled it, put it down. “Yeah, that used to be me. Pre-Jay. But I don’t think it’s possible to be a hopeless romantic when you’re in love with a man who is pretty much the anthesis of romance.” I smiled ever so slightly, thinking about last night, about Jay being at my apartment when I’d come home from the club. About the way he’d fucked me this morning before he left. My body ached in all the best ways. “But then again, romance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s definitely something to say about a life without it.”
