Page 95 of Getting Over You

Rory’s words make my chest constrict. “I do. But not from her. I like Gigi for being Gigi. I don’t want her to be like anything else.”

“That ship sailed the minute you decided to give in and sleep together. Sorry to disappoint, but she’s been in love with you this whole damn time. And that means being whoever she needs to be to make you happy.”

My stomach sinks. My blood drops in temperature, going ice cold. “She went on dates with that other dude,” I point out. “The artist guy she met at the coffee shop. Said she liked him a lot.”

“Shedid,” Rory says. “Until you got drunk and ruined everything.”

My jaw clenches. I mutter, “She never did tell me what I said, how I acted. Probably made the biggest ass of myself. And to save my feelings, she didn’t tell me.”

“Would you expect anything else from that girl?” Rory asks. I shake my head. She nods at me. “See. Not to mention the fact that she got a tattoo. You know that was to impress you, right? You aren’t so stupid that you didn’t notice that one. Tell me you aren’t that much of an idiot, Cade.”

“She kept saying,” I clear my throat, preparing my best high-pitched croon, “‘I got this tattoo to prove something to me, not to you.’ I want to believe her, because that’s a big thing for someone like Gigi. To think of that as her doing something for herself, not her doing something for me.”

“It’s both,” Rory tells me.

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” she says. “I don’t even think Gigi knows that it’s both. But it definitely is. I’m proud of her.”

“Me, too,” I say quietly. “That girl’s one of the strongest people I know. For her to be able to be nice to Belinda after everything,to not tell her off until last night—I can’t believe she waited so long.”

“Maybe seeing Belinda sabotaging what she has with you was the final straw,” EJ adds. “I dunno, though. How do girls’ brains work?” He smirks at Rory, and she swats at him.

“I think you’re right, sweet pea,” she adds. “Seeing Belinda mackin’ on her man did it, I’m sure. Gigi’s definitely the jealous type.”

“Sweet pea?” I raise my eyebrows curiously at EJ.

“If you and your girlfriend can do cutesy nicknames,” Rory says pointedly, “so can me and mine.”

“Hey, now,” EJ cuts in. “I wear the pants.”

“Sure you do, sweetheart,” Rory says, patting his leg. “Cade. You’re in deep now. Especially after tonight. I know you were trying to help her during a tough moment, but for Gigi, I’m sure it was more than that.”

It was more than that for me, too. That’s why it has to stop.

“I do have to end it,” I say. “Fuck me. I thought this was going to be simple.”

“You should have known the minute you met Gigi that nothing is simple about her or her circumstances,” Rory deadpans.

“Except her coffee order,” I add dryly. “That’s as simple as can be.”

Waking up next to Gigi makes me feel a way I’ve never felt. I’m happy to see her cute face as half of her head is buried into my pillow. I don’t mind that she hooked her leg with mine as we slept, whether she meant to or not.

I enjoyed pulling my T-shirt over her head after she showered, tucking her in so tightly as a joke, just to make her laughamongst all her crying. I’m happy she’s waking up with me today and not Belinda.

I would quit my job at the diner out of solidarity, but the money I’m getting—at least, what remains after I reimburse EJ—goes right into a fund to buy supplies for the shop. I’m not willing to risk my dream—I can’t. Like I told EJ and Rory last night, there is no way I’m letting that girl get in the way of this dream. She’d be a distraction—I won’t have it.

I can’t make Gigi understand that. Girls like her, who want the picture-perfect life she does, will never understand a man choosing anything but them in the end.

My shop is my one true love.

I can’t let my feelings for Gigi get in the way of me and my baby.

I won’t let them.

Resolute, I sit up in bed. I peer over at Gigi, then carefully reach a hand out to brush golden locks from her closed eyes. “I’m so sorry I’m going to destroy you,” I whisper. “But I don’t have a choice.”

Chapter thirty-one

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