Page 37 of Meet Me at Midnight

Maybe I could just go over and say hello?

A hand on my bicep squeezes, and I startle, and Bethany’s always red-painted lips curl into a smile. “Aren’t you going to say hi?” she greets, intrinsically thrilled to have gotten me with the element of surprise. She spends so much time here, I’m starting to wonder if we’re cutting her a check.

“Hi,” I say, any other words I might have had for her in the past lost somewhere between her open legs and Seth’s dick. It’s a sloppy, messy, dirty place, and I’ve got absolutely no desire to wade in there for the sake of fucking small talk.

She squeezes my bicep again. “I feel like it’s been forever since we talked, Beau.”

“Probably because it has,” I answer, looking over her shoulder and into Seth’s office to see why she’s wasting her time with me instead of powwowing with her fiancé.

Fiancé.What a joke.

Not even two months after we broke up, she and Seth were engaged. She’s never admitted the reality that she had an affair with him behind my back while we were still together, but she doesn’t have to. The proof is in the pussy—Seth’s, I mean, not hers. There’s no way he would have pulled aDesperate Housewiveson me if she weren’t putting out well before the announcement of their future plans.

“I hate that it’s like this between us, you know?” she says, and her mouth turns down at the corners. “We used to be so close, Beau.”

Yeah. We did. But then you fucked my best friend, so…

A very small part of me wants to say those words to her, but the larger part of me, the part that’s more than over this woman, chooses to be the bigger man here. Seth might be a fucking lying prick, but I refuse to stoop to his level of bullshit. I also refuse to waste my time on her.

“This is just how it has to be, Beth,” I answer, shrugging her hold off my arm with the motion of my shoulders and taking a step back.

“I disagree,” she refutes. “I think there’s too much history between us to just act like complete strangers whenever we’re around each other.”

“The history between us is very much what keeps us apart.”

“Come on,” she replies, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t miss being friends?”

“No,” I say simply, satisfaction buoying my chest when her ears turn red. She may not be mine anymore, but we were together so long, she couldn’t hide that kind of tell if she tried. My casual refusal is killing her.

She wants control over me in both mind and emotion, and I refuse to give it to her.

“Why not?”

“Because friends treat each other with respect.”

“Beau, I’m showing respect right now. I’m showing you that we can be friends,” she whispers, a wave of emotion making her face crumple. I don’t know if it’s bullshit or real, but I’ll never be the best judge of that—I thought our relationship was real for a long time, when, obviously, it wasn’t. I don’t say anything. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to. I put this shit behind me six months ago, and all I’m interested in doing is moving forward.

She glances between me and Seth’s office, and when he starts to stand up from his chair and head toward her, her entire demeanor changes. Puppy-dog eyes and pouty lips morph into a straight back, her head held high, and her very best smile plastered across her face.

She’s putting on a show, that’s for sure. I just can’t decide if it’s for him or for me.

“Hi, honey,” she says, welcoming him with a chummy smile and far-too-graphic kiss. Internally, I sigh. I should have walked away and left her here minutes ago.

“Hey, baby.” Seth pulls her in for a hug, making a pathetic show of squeezing her ass as he does. “Little reunion?” he questions, holding eye contact with me.

“Just saying hi,” Bethany says, but I don’t say anything at all.

Instead, I just smile at him. Just smile like a man without a single fucking care in the world.

I may be over the betrayal, but I’ll take every opportunity to make this asshole doubt and wonder until I’m buried in my grave. You don’t go behind your best friend’s back and steal his girl without consequences. And if he is going behind my back and trying to steal my Midnight campaign, fuck him for that too.

As far as I’m concerned, Seth McKenzie can blow a fucking goat, and from the way he acts, he feels the same way about me too. It’s Bethany who’s the tougher nut to crack, and the more I think about her attitude, the more my Spidey-senses start tingling.

I’m showing you we can be friends, Beau.Her words repeat in my mind, and they most certainly don’t sit well in my gut.

I swear to fuck, I’ll break something if I find out Bethany is the Mystery Woman and started all this just to screw with me.

“You ready to go to lunch?” Bethany asks him, trying to move his attention back to her, and turning him away.

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