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16
Doe
Aringing phone pulled me out of a deep, bliss-filled sleep. Peeking an eye open, I glanced at the nightstand beside me where both Jenner’s and my own phone were sitting. We had the same phones, right down to the same color, and neither of us had a case on it.
That was probably why I’d broken mine so many times, but I just couldn’t stand a case.
We also had the same ringtone programmed, something I’d been meaning to fix so that I would at least know when it was my phone ringing or if it was his. But I’d repeatedly forgotten, and now I had no clue which phone was making that annoying noise.
Groaning, I reached out for it, wanting nothing more than to make it stop so I could pass out again. Rolling onto my back, I blindly swiped my thumb over the screen until the ringing stopped, and I lifted it to my ear, answering it in a sleep-groggy voice, “Hello?”
The silence on the other end was surprisingly loud, which fully woke me up. Sitting up, I pushed my tangled hair out of my face, letting the sheet fall to my waist without caring that I was completely naked. “Hello?” I asked again, only to be greeted with more silence.
Frowning, I looked down at the screen, expecting to find “Spam Risk” on the caller ID. Instead, there was a name I didn’t recognize.
Pixie.
There were even double hearts and butterfly emojis around the name.
Who the fuck was Pixie?
My gaze snapped over to Jenner. He was lying on his stomach, one arm still draped across my lap now that I was upright, snoring so loud he sounded like a hibernating bear in the dead of winter. A smile started to lift my lips.
And then I heard a voice coming from the phone.
“Hello?” the soft, feminine voice called, and I quickly lifted it back up to my ear. “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” I demanded instead of answering.
“This is Pixie. Who the hell are you, and why do you have Jenner’s phone?”
Jealousy made my voice hard. I had no clue who this woman was, but I didn’t like that she was calling my boyfriend. “Excuse you? I’m Jenner’s girlfriend. Who the hell are you to—”
The woman’s humorless laughter cut me off. “Good one, bitch. But Jenner doesn’t do girlfriends. I’m the only woman in his life. I’m his—”
I ended the call before she could finish, not wanting to know how she knew anything. Throwing back the covers, I didn’t even care that I was naked as I jumped out of bed. Throwing the phone—obviously Jenner’s—on the bed, I grabbed my own before stomping over to the closet.
Earlier in the week, I’d brought over a few clothes to hang in the closet, and the night before, I’d brought even more. Grabbing the first thing of mine that I touched, I pulled it on and then started taking the rest of my clothes off the hangers. I didn’t waste time folding them as I stuffed them into my gym bag lying on the closet floor.
The whole time, I didn’t even try to be quiet, wanting Jenner to wake up and stop me. I wanted a confrontation, to scream and rage at him and demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing. Had he been laughing at me this whole time?
I’d been the first to say “I love you.” And then I’d eaten it up when he’d said it back. I should have known better. Life was not that easy. The things I wanted didn’t just fall into my lap. My mind replayed the moment things had changed. At the grocery store. With Courtney. Fuck, he must have seen how desperately I’d wanted out of that situation, and he’d used it to his advantage. Making himself the hero just so I would drop my guard and let him in without question.
The night he’d had dinner with my parents, he’d been off. We were supposed to talk last night about whatever had been bothering him. And I had planned on telling him about the bone marrow procedure. But we had gotten…distracted.
Was Pixie what he’d wanted to tell me about? Had he been planning on telling me that this thing between us wasn’t exclusive?
I’d gotten a bad feeling when he’d said we needed to talk, but he’d said there was nothing to worry about.
Jenner only slept, and I angrily zipped the bag, tossing it over my shoulder as I shot the naked man a glare.
He was just like every other asshole in West Bridge.
No, he was worse.
He’d given me a taste of happiness before ripping it all away.
The longer I stood there looking at him, the more my anger turned to hurt. I should have known that what we had was too good to be true. Whoever Pixie was to Jenner, the way her name was in his phone was enough to tell me that she was important. She’d sounded so confident that she was the only woman in his life, it had broken something in me.
Even though I’d gotten to know Jenner a lot over the past week, I was aware there was a lot about him that I didn’t know. But if Pixie was so special to him, he would have at least mentioned her at some point…
Unless she was his fuck buddy or whatever the two of them labeled their relationship.
That was the only reason I could logically come up with for her to sound so sure that she was the only woman in Jenner’s life and for him not to have mentioned a single word about her.
With my heart breaking more and more the longer I stood there, I felt something roll down my cheek, and I realized I was crying. I had a choice. Confront him, show him just how hurt I was, and maybe even break some of his shit. Or walk away. Pretend that my heart hadn’t been crushed into dust.
Ghost him.
Move on.
Put the son of a bitch out of my mind, pick myself up, and go on with my life.
Somehow.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I tried to lock down the parts of myself that were hurting. It was what had helped me through all the years of being bullied in school so that I didn’t spend every minute of the day crying. It had been more a defense mechanism to protect my brothers, to keep them out of trouble for punishing anyone who had hurt me.
But as I tried to lock down the emotional pain, I found I couldn’t. The tears wouldn’t stop. The agony of realizing I wasn’t someone special to Jenner was too much to store away in one of my many secret compartments.
Biting back a sob, I sprinted from the bedroom and out the front door. I’d asked Violet if I could park my truck in the garage so I could surprise Jenner the night before, and I quickly used the code to open the garage door. Minutes later, I was on the road, but the thought of going home with tears still flooding down my face wasn’t appealing. Mom would want to baby me, and Dad would go all rage monster. I couldn’t deal with either of them and their forms of coddling.
Without giving it a second thought, I turned the truck in the opposite direction from home. At a stop sign, I texted my mom to let her know where I was going to be and asked her not to let anyone else know. As soon as she replied, I powered off my phone and tossed it into the glove box.
When I pulled up outside the apartment building just off campus from Vanderbilt, I was startled. I didn’t even remember the drive. My brothers had always been my safe place, but with them all the way in Arkansas, I’d sought out the closest connection to them.
Getting out of the truck, I walked over to the entrance and went straight up to Aspen’s floor without even seeing anyone. It took him a few minutes to answer the door. When it opened, I was greeted with the sight of the love of my brother’s life standing there in nothing but a pair of boxers, his hair unkempt, and the imprint of his pillowcase against his cheek.
Blinking a few times, he finally focused on me. “Who do I need to kill?” he growled, pulling me into the apartment and slamming the door before wrapping me in a brotherly hug.
It was only when his arms were around me, the scent of his body wash reminding me so much of Jackson, that the sob I’d been fighting since I’d ended the call with Pixie forced its way free, and I collapsed in my friend’s arms.
“P-p-please don’t tell m-my brothers,” I begged.
“Shh,” Aspen soothed, stroking my hair back from my damp face. “Don’t worry about them for now. I’ve got you, Doe.”
He guided me over to his couch, and then a box of tissues was pushed into my hands. Pulling several out, he started mopping up my face, but the tears never stopped. “In all the years I’ve known you, I have never seen you cry like this. Fuck, I can’t remember you even shedding a tear.” He tilted my chin up, his eyes searching mine. “Did Jenner do something to hurt you?”
“M-my h-heart hurts,” I whispered brokenly. “It hurts so much, Asp. And I can’t make it stop. I-I c-can’t push it down or lock it a-away. H-how do I make it stop?”
Dropping the soaked tissues, he cupped my face in both his hands. “Doe, I really need you to tell me what happened. Okay, sweetheart?”
“I-I thought I was s-s-special.”
He groaned. “You are special, Doe. The most special girl I have ever met.”
“Am n-not,” I sobbed.
Aspen’s fingers dug a little harder into my skin. “You have about two seconds to start explaining what happened, or I’m going to drive down to West Bridge and put a bullet in the bodyguard.”
“Th-there’s someone else,” I got out in a hoarse voice. “And her name is P-Pixie!”
“What the fuck?” He growled. “He’s cheating on you with someone who has the name of a fucking fairy?” His brows pulled together. “Or a cat. That would be a cute cat name.”
“Aspen!” I cried.
“Oh, right. That’s totally off topic.” He pulled my head to his bare chest, and because he smelled so much like my brother, I wrapped my arms around him. “Whoever she is, there is no way she’s more beautiful than you. Or sweeter. Or smarter. This bitch couldn’t hold a candle to you, Doe.”
“I don’t even care about any of that,” I muttered. “Sh-she said that she is the only woman in Jenner’s life. Obviously, he’s been playing us both.”
He pulled back a little so he could look down at me. “Wait, that’s what she said? That she’s the only woman in his life? Did she say she was his girlfriend?”
“No, because I didn’t want to hear it. So, I hung up on her and came here.”
“Doe, you are the only woman in my life, so really, she could just have been a friend?” He said it like a question, because he knew that theory sounded as weak as it actually was.
I pushed away from him and slouched down on the couch. “Bullshit. I’m the only woman in your life because you’re madly in love with my stupid brother. Jenner is one-hundred-percent straight. No way they are just friends. And her name was in his phone with all these cutesy emojis. Hearts and butterflies on either side like it was precious to him.”
“How is your name in his phone?” he asked curiously. “Jackson’s name is ‘Trouble’ in mine.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it. But his is ‘Love of My Life’ in mine.”
He patted my leg. “I’m going to make you some tea. Watch some television or call your brothers.”
“I turned off my phone,” I told him as I grabbed a fresh tissue to wipe my face. “And left it in the truck.”
“You ghosted him?” he asked with a laugh. “Good for you. Don’t go all She-Hulk and bust his shit. Just fade away and pretend the bastard doesn’t even exist. Classy. I like it.”
“Yeah, now if I could just stay gone…”
