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She rolled her eyes and turned back to me. “You look great too!” she said, gesturing to my black wide-necked sweater, blue jeans, and black ankle boots.
“Thanks, it was hard to pick something to wear, not knowing how tonight is going to go.”
“I know. Are you guys ready for tonight? Are you scared? Do you know how you’re going to confront, you-know-who?” Hannah whispered hilariously, suddenly vibrating with nervous energy.
“Why are you freaking out?” I asked, taking a sip of my beer.
“I don’t know! I think it’s because I know drama is going to go down tonight, so I’m all on edge.”
I smiled. “Hannah, don’t you know by now that drama goes down at every party we attend together?”
She threw back her dark head and laughed. “Oh my god, you’re right!”
As we were laughing, Jack approached me with an uncomfortable look on his face. “Ava, Nik and I were just talking and came up with a plan, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
Oh god. “Okay, what is it?” I asked with trepidation.
Jack looked around and pulled me into the next room, a giant, nearly deserted dining room. “Nik and I were thinking the way to get Addison to confess would be to make her think her plan worked.”
I gulped. “Okay, how do you want to do that?”
He looked into my eyes, as if trying to evaluate the impact of his next words. “It has to look like we just broke up. Then I have to find her and start shit talking you to her, so she’ll believe me. Then I have to act like I like her.
Every step of his plan felt like a body blow as he explained it, even though I knew it wasn’t real. I slowly nodded my head. “Okay,” I whispered, feeling like bits of glass were stuck in my throat.
He took my face in his hands, his dark green gaze boring into me. “You know this doesn’t mean anything. I’m going to talk to her, but only to get her to confess. Do you understand? I don’t want her. I want you. I love you.”
I blinked at him. “You do?”
Jack jerked back a bit, as if he just heard what he’d said. “Um, shit, let’s talk about that later?” I wanted to chuckle because he looked sick. I knew how uncomfortable he was with expressing himself and now was definitely not the time to come to grips with what he’d just said, no matter how sweet I thought it was.
I put a hand on his cheek, my heart swelling with love and affection for him. “Yeah, we’ll talk about it later.”
He blew out a sigh of relief. “So, you’ll understand that when you see us together that I don’t like her and don’t want her.”
I nodded my head. “Yes, I’ll be okay.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” he said grimly.
****
Chapter 40
Jack
The four of us quickly worked to circulate the story that Ava and I had broken up. I grew more disturbed every minute of the idiotic pretense, even though it had been my idea. Ava managed to look suitably forlorn as she stood by Hannah. I just opted to look pissed off, which was easy because that’s how I felt at having to put on this stupid performance.
I couldn’t believe I had just blurted out that I loved Ava. What the fuck was that? Did I love her? Yes, I definitely did. Did I want her knowing that? Who the hell knows. In fact, I was shocked at how calm I felt after sharing such an unexpected, emotional declaration. Did I need to mention it tonight of all nights? Hell no. I needed to put all that shit on the back burner as I focused on our plan.
I took one last look at Ava, who shot me a quick wink over the rim of her cup as she took a sip of her beer. That one little gesture went a long way toward soothing my strained temperament. I took a sip of my drink and returned the gesture before leaving the kitchen in search of Addison, so we could wrap up this whole shit show.
I found her in the family room talking to Casey, fortunately without Crenshaw. Shit, the last time I’d seen Addison I’d practically screamed in her face and the last time I saw Casey I was knocking out her boyfriend. I was going to have to put on a hell of an act here.
I walked up to the girls and they both stared me as if I were an apparition.
I smiled. “Hey,” I said and took a sip of my drink. Jesus Christ.
They both immediately perked up when I smiled, probably relieved I wasn’t here to yell at them.
