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“No.” I look at him and five years of friendship allows him to read my face.I don’t want to talk to him and I need you to stay here as a buffer.“Paxton and I have nothing to talk about.”
“Shay, please. It’s not…” His eyes dart around the table to the three other people and he lets out an exasperated breath. I know it’s because he doesn’t know what to say or how to say it. “It’s not what you think.”
My lips pull into a thin line and my eyebrows furrow in question. “You can’t be serious. I don’tthinkanything. I’m not assuming or speculating. I saw it with my own two eyes, Paxton. Don’t even try to play with me right now.”
Jeremy tenses next to me probably reading between the lines and his eyes flash to Paxton’s in disappointment.
“Shay, can we talk in private, please?” Paxton asks as he avoids Jeremy’s gaze.
“No. You ambushed me while I’m out with my friends so you can try to force me into talking?” I flash him another smile and bat my eyelashes at him. “You really tried it.” I snort. “Not going to happen!”
“If I walk away from this table without you, they’re going to know we’re fighting.”
“They already think that,” Veronica interjects. “Paxton, just stop. She’s not getting up and to quote a classic movieyou can’t sit with us.”
“So, this is how it’s going to be after everything?”
The fake pleasantries fly from my body and anger flashes across my face. “Are you serious?”
“Paxton, Shay, can we get a picture?” I hear Jeff, one of the nicer and more polite paparazzi from just beyond the velvet rope at the entrance to our section. It isn’t unheard of for paparazzi to be floating around or to actually ask us to pose for pictures rather than just snapping potentially unflattering ones. My eyes pull from him and give Paxton a look because if I had to guess, I’d say Paxton told him we’d give him a picture if he asked just to force me into it.
I grit my teeth, narrowing my eyes at him before looking at Jeremy. “Can you move so I can take this bullshit picture?” I say through a perfectly composed smile and Jeremy nods before letting me out of the booth so I can stand next to Paxton. Immediately his arm wraps around my hip and slides down. I turn to face him, putting my back to the camera. “I would think again.” I think he realizes he shouldn’t fuck with me right now because when I move back next to him to prepare for the picture, he doesn’t touch me.
A few more people have realized that we are posing for a picture and I hear more clicks from around the room. I already know it’s going to be a race to who can share it first.
“Five minutes, Shay,” Paxton pleads and I can see the sadness in his brown eyes. I’m not sure if he’s already mourning our relationship or mourning the part of him that will get eviscerated when the public finds out what happened, but the pain in his brown orbs is evident. “Please.”
“Fine.” I nod. “But only because they’re going to just stay there taking pictures for the rest of the night until you leave. And make no mistake, youareleaving after we talk.”
He swallows and nods before following me towards the back where we can be alone except for Damian who is no more than thirty feet away. His back is turned, disallowing anyone to interrupt our moment of privacy and his large body takes up most of the entrance so it would be difficult for anyone to get a clear shot of us behind him.
“I fucked up,” Paxton blurts out, obviously thinking that I’m going to hold him to five minutes.
“No shit.” My lips flatten. “How long?” I ask the one question that’s been eating at me since I saw his dick thrust inside of her and his quiet hesitation has me wanting to throw up. “Are you kidding me?”
“Shay…”
“We talked about the future. We talked about whatourfuture would look like whenLA Dreamswas over and the whole time you were fucking another woman?”
“Not the…whole time.”
“ARE YOU ARGUING SEMANTICS?” I scream and immediately I ball my hands into a fist digging my fingernails into my palm to try and quell the rage building inside of me. There is a dull roar in the lounge but if I keep getting louder, I’m sure they’ll be able to hear me. I notice Damian looking over his shoulder before turning around to face the room again. “You and I are done. Do you understand me? Done.”
He lets out a sigh and rubs his forehead. “You and I both know it’s not that easy. Your PR team already talked to my team and they want us to stay together. And I want that too.” He reaches for my hand and I snatch it back.
“Stay together while you keep fucking her and whoever the fuck else? Pass.”
“I’m not going to be sleeping with anyone anymore. It wasn’t…she doesn’t mean anything.”
Anymore.That word is a bitter pill because it means he’s only stopping because he got caught. Not because he’s worried about hurting me. Just his reputation. “That’s all you have to say? She doesn’t mean anything? That means I should put up with this?”
“Shay, I’m sorry. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and—”
I put a hand up silencing him. “You can get the entire fuck out of here with that. We’ve been together three years and you threw it away for what? Because you needed your dick sucked? My God, you’re pathetic.” I snort.He threw us away for a fling? I was half expecting him to tell me they’d been hooking up for months. That he was in love with her or she was in love with him. That there were feelings. But for nothing? He risked us for nothing? Is that all I meant to him?
I can tell I’ve struck a nerve with my insult because he narrows his gaze at me and I raise an eyebrow daring him to test me. “I want to know how long you’ve been cheating on me.”
He lets out a breath. “I want to be withyou.None of them meant anything, Shay.”
