Page 80 of Illicit Illustration

“I. Don’t. Want. To. Fucking. Breathe.”

“You’re kind of scaring me right now,” she whispered, eyes wide as she flattened herself against the wood at her back.

“Good. I hope I am. Because I am fucking done with all of you keeping things from me to manipulate my life.” Shaking my head, I bit my lip to stave off the tears. I wasn’t sure if they were from anger or sadness, but either way, I was about to fucking blow. And Charley was right in the path of Hurricane Hazel.

“We weren’t trying to…” she trailed off when I stomped my foot, pain radiating up my calf because it was still half asleep, but I was running on adrenaline and anxiety, and I couldn’t stop if I wanted to right now. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to—”

“Well, maybe you should have fucking tried harder.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked him to do it, but I kind of guessed how he felt about you, and you two were going to continue dancing around each other for another two years if I didn’t do anything and now…”

“And now I’m miserable, and he’s back home being whatever the fuck he was, and now I don’t know if I can trust any of the people in my life. But yeah, that’s so much better than just letting things happen naturally.”

“Oh, you think things would have happened naturally?” she scoffed, crossing her arms and cocking one eyebrow. She’d been spending too much time with my brother. His mannerisms were rubbing off on her, as well as other things I would never acknowledge, because ew.

“I mean, maybe.”

“Yeah, right,” she laughed, shaking her head. “He would have tried to flirt with you, and you would have retreated into your shell so hard no one could coax you out.”

“I seemed to do just fine while he was flirting with me for the last two weeks. He didn’t need your help to pretend to be someone he isn’t to get me to confess personal things to him under the veil of having anonymous text conversations.”

“I don’t think he was pretending, Haz. He seemed genuinely crushed when Hudson talked to him.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he did. And I’m sure you were right there eavesdropping on that conversation because you just can’t fucking helpyourself. You’re so fucking nosy that you had to meddle in my life, and now I really am going to end up alone. And someone I thought I had actual feelings for was a fucking sham, and my brother is going to hold this against him. So not only did you ruin my life, but you also ruined my brother’s too.”

Her head shifted back as if I had slapped her. “I didn’t tell Reid to do this, Hazel. He never told me he was going to go after you in real life. I didn’t even know if you were going to give him your number to begin with.”

“Well, since you both lied to me, now I wish I fucking hadn’t.”

“So, you wish the last two weeks never happened? Is that what I’m hearing?”

Nodding, I crossed my arms, trying to hold myself together now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “Yeah. I kind of do. I wish you’d never talked me into this stupid experiment.”

“Then maybe your feelings for him aren’t as strong as you thought they were. Because the Hazel I know wouldn’t be standing in a bathroom fighting with me if she were really in love with her brother’s best friend. She’d be yelling at him instead.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel.”

“Why not?” she asked, approaching me slowly and then carefully pulling me into her chest, cupping the back of my head and urging me to lay it against her shoulder as my anger waned.

I sniffed, trying to keep my voice from cracking when I spoke, but I failed. “Because he clearly doesn’t feel the same way. I don’t know what the whole point of this was.”

“Then why don’t you go ask him?”

Hazel

And that was howI ended up standing in front of his apartment door, nervously bouncing on my toes while I waited for him to answer.

The adrenaline from yelling at Charley in the bathroom was wearing off, but I could tell my brain was still riding the wave of anger infused dopamine.

She had made it sound like Reid had come back home after he left the bar, but as the silence stretched on, I wondered if he’d gone somewhere else. Not that he went to many other places than across the parking lot.

Which had me wondering if he was now going to avoid spending time there. Hudson had been too busy at the bar to notice I’d left, but I was sure he had all kinds of opinions on how epically fucked tonight had gotten.

Closing my eyes, I reached up and pounded on the door again, telling myself that I would wait for another thirty seconds before I went back home and started ordering my furry stuffed companions. By the time I got to twenty-five counting in my head, a noise from the other side of the door had my heart rate picking up.

I could do this. I could be brave. Even if I currently felt like throwing up.

“Hud, you know I love you, man, but I’m not in the fucking mood. Just go fuck Charley and leave me alone. You can kick my ass tomorrow.”

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