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Damn.
Well, if she’d wanted proof that this time he wasn’t going to ghost her, this was definitely feeling different than before.
He was inserting himself into her life, immediately, in a big way. If she was being honest, it had been comforting having him helping her move. She was so pissed at London, but if she was being truthful she was also a little hurt. Not because he’d immediately slept with another woman.
She didn’t love that, but she wasn’t a hypocrite, and she could easily dismiss that feeling.
No, what hurt was that he’d tried to hurt her. That he’d wanted to. Sure, it also made her angry, but there was a little pained thread of ‘why’ sliding through that anger. What could she have possibly done to deserve a deliberate attempt to hurt her?
Sure, she’d gone and slept with someone else immediately too, but she would have never wanted London to know, much less tried to ensure that he did. Like, what the hell?
“These look interesting,” Orlando said, taking some of her books out of the box he was unpacking. Juliet found herself blushing again as he studied the cover of a couple in a clinch. Yeah, no secret as to what they were about. Normally she wasn’t bothered at all, but this was Orlando.
“They are.” Even if she was blushing, she refused to admit it.
“Juliet likes the naughty stuff.”
“Oh, like you don’t,” Juliet retorted. “I know you’ve got every book Victoria Vale has ever written.”
“Those are historicals, they’re automatically classy.” Brooke lifted her chin in mock outrage. “Besides, you’ve read all of them too.”
“That’s why I know how filthy they are.”
The banter continued back and forth all throughout the unpacking and dinner. Trying to find room for everything she’d taken was a job and a half. Some of it ended up going into a box to donate —which Orlando offered to take care of and Juliet took him up on the offer.
She was starting to wonder exactly how far he’d be willing to go to show that he’d changed. Part of her also wondered if he was angling to spend the night, which she had very mixed feelings about, but not long after they were done eating he glanced at the clock and said he had to get going.
Disappointment thrummed through her immediately.
Stupid body. This is a good thing!
She was still sore from yesterday after all. Plus, she needed some time to decompress. To think. To be alone.
Nothing about this weekend had gone the way she’d planned it to. And she was still reeling from London’s sudden departure and Orlando’s even more sudden reappearance in her life. It was a lot to assimilate.
“Walk me out to my car?” he asked her, picking up the box of donations.
“Sure.” She didn’t need Brooke’s shooing motion to accept. Though she’d used Brooke as a kind of shield all day, now that Orlando was leaving, getting a moment alone with him, without her roommate, was something she wanted too.
As they walked down the sidewalk, her phone buzzed, and she automatically took it out to check the message. And stared at it. And stared.
“What’s wrong?” Orlando asked, leaning toward her and craning her neck to try and see what was on her screen.
“It’s London. He’s saying the shower rings are his.”
“The shower rings?” Orlando came to a halt and she did too, still staring at her phone.
“You know, that you hang the shower curtain from?”
“I know what shower rings are, I just can’t imagine why he cares that he bought the shower rings.”
Juliet shook her head, pressing her lips together as she quickly responded to the text.
“I’m pretty sure they’re not, anyway. I bought them at the same time I bought the shower curtain. I mean, that’s what makes sense right?”
“Right.” Orlando shook his head. “You two are in a competition to see who can be pettiest, I think.” Amusement was clear in his voice. Juliet looked up at him and stuck out her tongue.
“He started it,” she muttered. Because he had. If he hadn’t left that stupid condom wrapper under the bed, she would have happily left all the stuff she didn’t actually need. While the cost of living around LA was expensive, she did pretty well with her job, and since she was going to be living with Brooke that was going to save her a lot of money.
