Page 32 of Obsessed with the Heartbreaker

I’m so fucked.

Chapter 9

Antony

I was grateful for many reasons that I was able to finally live with my friends in our little shared apartment of three instead of in the dorms. For one, I didn’t have to interact with any semi-strangers when it was the end of the day and I was tired. There was also the fact that we could more easily just choose to chill the three of us in the living room, legs stretched over our tiny coffee table, while we watched trash TV and ate some dinner.

One con, though?

There was no way to keep secrets away from them.

Not only because my face betrayed me nine times out of ten, but because there was just no way to hide from them that I’d been out last night.

So it was why this morning, when I came to the kitchen to get some breakfast after a shower, I wasn’t surprised to find my two best friends waiting for me expectantly.

“Get here late last night?” Eliot asked first, his head a mess of dark curls falling over his blue eyes as he nodded up at me, arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he was a terrible actor pretending to be a cowboy, Scott being his sidekick, and I was a rough-looking intruder in their territory.

“Are we in a Western now? Because you forgot your hats. And fake guns.Andyour acting skills.”

Eliot looked at me, unimpressed, while Scott tried not to break into a smile and ruin the mood.

I ended up shrugging, trying for nonchalance. “Got distracted.”

“Distracted.” Eliot stared at me with a‘you’re-full-of shit’expression.

I put on the coffee maker, since they had probably been waiting for me to enter to hit me with their interrogation, and once the tension between us got too much for me to handle, I admitted “Fine. I was out.”

“Out where? Did you go to a party?” Scott asked, looking me up and down for signs of…something. His pajamas were all wrinkled, but no more than Eliot’s sweats, which looked like he’d been doing origami with them.

“I was at Henry’s frat.”

More silence. More stares.

The coffee maker beeped, and I poured coffee for the three of us before exploding in a nervous rush and saying, “He invited me there, okay? I didn’t just go because I wanted to. I’m doing a small favor to his father, and Henry and I have an agreement that I’m not going to tell you about, so that is that.”

Eliot was the first to break into a laugh at my nervous outburst and Scott asked, “Wait, rewind.Henryinvited you, but it’s his father you’re doing a favor for? I thought they didn’t get along?”

I sighed. They were going to make me tell them what had happened weren’t they? Only I wouldn’t tell them all of it.

I was keeping my deal with Henry secret for a reason—which was that I didn’t want Scott to find out we were using him as an excuse. It had started as me being benevolent enough to sacrifice myself in order to help Scott’s boyfriend, but really, I thought both Henry and I knew it wasn’t about that at all.

Especially when he kept giving me outs.

Especially when I was the one desperate enough to throw myself at his feet and beg for him to take me in.

I wasn’t ready to talk about it, though, and if I told them, my friends would see right through me. They would also ask for me to tell them what had happened three years ago, and if they joined the dots, they would realize…

Well. They would see where all this Henry-related pain was coming from.

So I told them a bit about Connell Campbell’s request and the whole dinner at the steak house.

Their brows furrowed the more I told them.

“Connell wantedyouto convince Henry? He thinks you can do his dirty work?” Eliot asked, sounding skeptical.

“It’s not hisdirty work.”

“Then what is it? Because that’s what it sounds like.”

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