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“I thought all this was over with Brady, you know, but it pissed me off to see him last night.”
“Why would it make you mad? He’s moved on. Haven’t you?” Azalea gave her a pointed look, and Jewel at least had the decency to blush slightly.
Jewel scrunched her nose. “I thought I had. It wasn’t so much that he showed up with Cora last night, it was what he said.”
“He spoke to you?” Azalea set her empty mug down.
“Unfortunately.”
“What’d he say?”
“You mean you haven’t heard? I figured it’d be all over town by now.”
“It might be.” Azalea rested back. “But let me hear it from your perspective.”
“What he said doesn’t really matter—”
“It obviously matters, J, otherwise you wouldn’t still be upset.”
Jewel gave a mock glare before staring at the floor. Azalea gave her some time. No one had talked to her about what happened, so whatever it had been, it wasn’t as bad as the parking lot incident. “He asked where you were.”
“Why would he care about that?” At Jewel’s pointed look, Azalea mouthed the word, “Oh.”
“I told him he shouldn’t worry about you, in so many words.”
“In what words?” Now she was curious. What had Jewel said about her?
Jewel groaned. “You know, it really doesn’t matter.”
“You have never hedged telling me something before, so why now?” Azalea held Jewel’s gaze, wanting an answer. When she was met with only silence, Azalea continued. “Look, we’re best friends, right?”
Jewel nodded.
“I’m not going to lose that friendship. You can come to me with whatever is bothering you, you know that. And it is clear to me that whatever happened with Brady last night is bothering you. So why not tell me?”
Jewel bit her lip, clearly an internal debate going through her mind. Azalea waited it out, hoping Jewel would choose to open up. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can’t hurt me,” Azalea whispered. “I’m not fragile.”
Jewel held the silence a moment longer before breaking it. “I told him you were out of his league, and he needed to accept the fact you’d turned him down, twice. And I may have said that in front of his friends.”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
Grimacing, Jewel nodded. “Yeah.”
“What else happened, J?”
“He called you a cold-hearted bitch—well, us. He called us that. But then he called you a sexless prude.”
Azalea hissed as she tensed. She had not been expecting that. It had been no secret Brady had always had a crush on her growing up, but to flip to this extreme because she maintained a boundary was unexpected. He had seemed to even out after high school, but then again, she didn’t deal with him directly anymore. Jewel had never said anything about it in the year they’d dated, though, so she’d figured he’d worked through some of his issues.
“For the record, I disagree with him.”
Azalea’s lips quirked up at Jewel’s defense. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary. He was angry.”
“Is angry,” Jewel corrected. “I’m honestly not sure how much longer he will be angry.”
“Knowing him? Probably quite some time. He tends to hold grudges for years.” At Jewel’s confused look, Azalea shook her head. “I’ve known him a lot longer than you have.”
