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I felt awful, and there was a dull ache in my chest. Had I really just done that? Had I broken up with the person I wanted most in this world?
Part of me felt like I’d made a huge mistake. Harper and I would have had a few more days and nights together if I hadn’t done this today, and they would have been wonderful. I knew that for a fact.
But given how much this hurt after such a short time, I had to believe it was the right call. If I’d let it go on, only to have Harper end it a handful of days or weeks from now, the pain would have been unbearable. It was already almost too much.
I didn’t dare put Loco down because I was sure she’d run off, so I was clutching the skinny chicken to my chest when a black Porsche convertible pulled up beside me a few minutes later. An all too familiar voice asked, “What the hell are you doing, Phoenix?”
I turned to frown at my twin brother. “A better question is, what are you doing here, Dallas?”
“My friend Tony sent me a text to let me know Harper Royce is throwing a house party, so I was on my way to check it out.”
“Great. Well, it’s a total douche-fest, so you’ll feel right at home.”
Dallas actually chuckled at that instead of getting offended. I started walking again in the opposite direction he’d been travelling, and he threw the car in reverse and started rolling along with me. “Okay, serious question,” he said. “Are you okay? Because you look like you just survived a nuclear blast, and now you and your chicken are shell-shocked and wandering the streets.”
“It’s Harper’s chicken. Her name’s Loco.”
“Are you kidnapping it for a ransom?”
“No. I just didn’t want to leave her with the douchebags.” I glanced at him, and after a moment I asked, “Did you buy yourself a convertible the second you arrived in L.A.?”
“I got here late last night, and the Porsche is a lease. It seemed simpler than shipping one of my cars from Nashville, especially since I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I’m about to shoot—”
“A pilot for a TV show. Noah told me. Where is he, anyway?”
“Running errands, and you never answered my question,” he said. “Are you alright?”
“Don’t pretend you care.”
“You think I don’t?”
A harsh laugh slipped from me, and when I paused and turned to look at him, the Porsche came to a stop. “The last time I remember you giving a shit about me was when we were seventeen and you hit me with Dad’s car. Although now that I think about it, you were more concerned about how much trouble you’d be in than anything else.”
“Okay, first of all I grazed you. Don’t make it sound like I used you as a human speed bump. And it was your fault you got hit. You were guiding me into that narrow parking space, and you were supposed to get the hell out of the way before I ran you over.”
“I love how you even make getting run over my fault.”
“It was! The car was going about two miles an hour, and all you had to do was move out of the way. And yeah, I was more worried about getting in trouble, because I knew you were fine. You were cussin’ a blue streak, so I obviously hadn’t killed you. Meanwhile, we’d only had our licenses about a month, and I was sure Dad and Mom would take mine away if I’d accidentally broken your leg or something.”
I stared at him and said flatly, “So, the only example I could think of for a time you cared about me turned out to be a story about something that was totally my fault, while you were perfectly innocent and actually didn’t care at all. Awesome.”
“Damn it, Phoenix. Why are you always such a martyr?”
My voice rose, and I asked, “How am I being a martyr? You know what, never mind. Don’t answer that. Just go to your party and enjoy day drinking with a bunch of spoiled, rich assholes who have as much depth as a petri dish.”
I started walking again, and the Porsche started rolling as Dallas said, “You know what’s so annoying about you?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“The fact that you think there’s this nobility that comes with being poor. Anyone who makes more money than you is automatically a shallow douchebag, while you’re so much better than us because you haven’t been corrupted by the almighty dollar.”
“I don’t even sort of think that,” I muttered.
“Sure you do. Did you even talk to anyone at that party to determine if they were, in fact, a shallow douchebag, or did you reach that conclusion because you’re prejudiced?”
