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“Oh. Okay.”
He’s still pissed at me. Clearly.
“I’ll be nice. I’ll permit you to choose what we address first.” He bares his teeth at me in a feral smile. “What shall it be? Your sordid love affair with our friend Nate or the fact that you placed yourself in danger last night despite numerous objections from yours truly?”
“I figured we’d start with your I-told-you-so,” I answer. “Because that’s what you really want to say, isn’t it?”
Before he can murder me for my insolence, the doorbell rings.
“To be continued,” Lee growls before stomping off. A moment later, there’s some commotion at the front door before a stunned Lee comes chasing after an angry Yvonne. She’s wearing a black peacoat that flaps around the knees of her dark-blue skinny jeans as she marches toward me.
“Bitch!” she hisses at me. “You must think I’m so stupid. Have a good laugh, did you?”
A queasy pretzel knots up my stomach. “Yvonne, I don’t— ”
“Do not even try to play dumb! I heard that one”—she nods toward Lee— “going on at the pub all about you and Nate. You going to lie straight to my face?”
Lee blanches. The repentant flicker in his horrified eyes tells me he feels bad about gossiping.
Yvonne curls the fingers of both hands around the top of Jamie’s empty chair. Her knuckles are nearly white. “I’m a complete mug, aren’t I? Try to be nice and the first thing you do is stab me in the back. Fucking slag.”
“Hey.” Jack shoves back from the counter and stands. “That’s enough. You don’t get to come storming into my house and yelling at my roommates because your boyfriend dumped you. Take it out on him.”
I swallow the lump of regret in my throat. “Yvonne, I don’t know what you heard, but I’m sorry,” I say sincerely. “I swear nothing happened until after you broke up.”
“Do I look fucking mental? All those trips driving you all over the bloody country. You did this on purpose. You bitch.”
“No, you need to go.” Jack approaches her, pointing the way out. “I’m not having it.”
I try again to apologize to her. “I really am sorry. Honestly, Nate and I only got together after— ”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she snaps at me, livid and red-faced. “You’re a cow and a bad person, and you can fuck right off!”
At that, she stalks out of the flat and slams the door behind her, leaving us all stuttering to catch our breath.
I’m still trying to make sense of what happened when Jack rounds on me. “Seriously, Abbey?”
I blink. “What?”
“You and Nate are, what, a couple now?”
“No. I never said that.”
“You told her you ‘got together’— ”
“Yes, got together. Hooked up. Whatever.” Embarrassment creeps up my neck as my dirty laundry is aired to the entire house. “Which you already knew about, Jack.”
“Yes,” Lee interjects, his voice tight. “Let’s discuss that, shall we? How is it that Jackie knew all about this torrid love affair while the rest of us were kept in the dark?”
Jack ignores him, glaring at me. “You still think Nate is a good guy? After all this?”
“All what? Yvonne showed up pissed because she found out I see Nate sometimes,” I retort. “How is that Nate’s fault? He broke up with her before he and I so much as kissed.”
“How can you be so naive? You just saw her. Does that look like a woman who was let down gently? Nate doesn’t care about anyone. Certainly not you.”
I don’t know if Jack’s specifically trying to hurt me with that remark, but it stings just the same.
“But you do?” I shoot back. “You care about mesomuch you never once asked me to stop seeing him. Right, Jack?”
