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It’s been eating me up inside, and I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that I fucked her behind Adam’s back or that she keeps texting me every day, begging to see me. He deserves to know, but the thought of telling him makes me want to puke.
Someone taps at my door, disrupting my thoughts, and I tell them to fuck off. Adam’s drunk friends always wander over to the cottage, trying to find an empty spot to hook up.
There’s a pause, and then the door opens anyway. The room is dark, but the lights from outside cast a glow around Bianca, illuminating half her face. She peers inside, whispering my name, and then stumbles forward, nearly tripping over the rug.
“Jesus, Bianca.” I jump up and help her into the room, turning on a lamp so I can see her. “How much did you have to drink?”
She hiccups and laughs, but it’s hollow. “I’m not drunk. Just clumsy.”
My eyes move over her reluctantly, and I can see she’s not drunk or clumsy. She’s upset, and it’s obvious from the redness around her eyes she’s been crying.
“What’s going on?” I try to lead her over to the sofa, but she wraps her arms around my waist and settles her face against my chest with a sigh.
“I wanted to see you. Can’t I just come see a friend?”
Her voice contains a note of sadness, but I wonder if it’s even real. How many times did she innocently ask me if a friend could do the things she did with me at the ranch? At the time, it was amusing, but things are different now.
“We aren’t friends anymore,” I remind her. “That’s the way this has to be.”
She’s quiet, and I’m trying to find the will to pry her off me when she releases a gut-wrenching sob.
“I hate this, Madden. I miss you so much I can’t stand it. I just want…”
She can’t finish whatever she’s trying to say, and I don’t want her to. Whatever it is, it won’t change anything.
“You should go back to Adam. I’m sure he’s looking for you.”
She laughs bitterly, shaking her head against me. “He’s in the pool house with a horde of his admirers. He got pissed that I wouldn’t have sex with him, so he brought in a bunch of girls from the party to entertain himself with.”
It shouldn’t make me feel good that she hasn’t hooked up with him yet, but in a sick way, it does. I know that isn’t right. If he were just some random guy, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I would have stolen her back from him without a second thought. But this is Adam. He’s my brother. And she’s the first thing I’ve ever wanted for myself. Now I’m caught in the middle of a fucked-up triangle I don’t want to be a part of.
Then it occurs to me that maybe this is just another lie. How would I even know? Because when I look into her eyes, I don’t know what to believe anymore. I could call her out on it, but now isn’t the right time. I don’t think there will ever be a right time because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. We can’t hash this out. It won’t ever change the result.
“I don’t know what to say,” I tell Bianca, treading carefully. “I’m sorry if he’s being a dick. He’s drunk, and I’m sure in the morning—”
“Don’t.” Bianca looks up at me. “Don’t make excuses for him. He’s gone too far this time. Do you know who he’s in there with? Two of my so-called friends.”
“I thought you didn’t care,” I remind her.
“It isn’t about who he gets off with,” she says. “It’s the fact that he’s trying to drive a wedge between me and my friends, and they’re letting him.”
I nod because I don’t know what to say to that, especially when I was doing the same thing not that long ago. And whether it’s true or not, it’s not my job to sort this shit out between them.
Bianca’s quiet for a long time, and I let her keep hugging me because I’m a fucking masochist. I tell myself that as long as I don’t hug her back, I’m not really doing anything wrong. But then that voice in my head insists it wouldn’t be wrong, anyway, because she was mine first.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whispers.
My entire body goes rigid because I think I know what she means, but I’m hesitant to ask.
“Do what?”
She looks up at me so fucking broken it almost breaks me. And I don’t get it. How can she be faking this? It feels too real. But then I remember the way she smiled at Adam. The way she let him touch her. That was real too.
