Page 19 of Love Not Qualified

I was sure he was an eye-catcher wherever he went.

“Hae!” I heard Merielle’s voice and my head snapped to her. “Are you coming in or not? I’m freezing,” she muttered, pulling the coat tighter over her body.

I followed her inside before typing him a quick reply without really thinking it through.

Me

look who’s talking. I bet you’re a panty-dropper *smirk emoji*

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, nudging me with her elbow.

I lingered on the conversation for a moment, ready to delete the message. What was he going to think about me? That I only cared about the way he looked? Because that wasn’t true. I just couldn’t stop myself from telling him what I thought about the way he looked. It was a normal thing to do after he complimented me.

Instead of deleting the message, I stuffed my phone in my purse. He needed to know me just the way I was, even with my unfiltered comments.

My attention diverted to Merielle. “What do you mean?” I questioned her, as if I didn’t know what she was talking about.

She stopped in front of the door to her living room, her eyes fixed on me while her hands rested on her hips. “I mean, why were you smiling like a freak at your phone? I called your name four times before you noticed I was standing in front of you.”

I tightened the purse’s string tighter on my shoulder, biting my bottom lip as I glanced from side to side, searching for an escape. Unfortunately for me, there was nothing to save me besides a coat closet and an empty hallway.

The boys’ voices boomed outside, their curses covering my erratic breaths. They were most likely playing PUBG the same way they did every time they got together. Sometimes, Merielle and I joined them.

“I—” I started when she didn’t seem to back down.

“It’s that stupid app, isn’t it? Haelyn, how many times do I have to tell you that guys on a dating app aren’t what they claim to be?” Merielle raised her brows at me, making me feel like a child who did a bad thing. “Most of them don’t even use their real picture and the second you’re in love with them, they ask you out and sell your organs. It’s dangerous.”

My eyes immediately shot to her. An inexplicable need to defend Chad snuck its way under my skin. She had no right to talk that way about him when she didn’t even know how good he’d been with me.

“Chad is not like that,” I spit out. “And you told me to find someone, that’s what I’m doing. Just because I won’t sleep with Eric like you want me to doesn’t mean I can’t get to know other men outside of a shitty bar,” I breathed out, then pushed her to the side and burst into her living room.

The boys were lounging on the couch and their eyes flew from their phones to me.

“Hi, guys,” I muttered, then took a seat next to Christian.

He locked his phone and glanced at me, but I was shaken from the encounter with Merielle to give him any kind of attention. Instead, I was looking at the black screen of the TV placed in front of the sofa.

“How was the interview?” Christian asked, threading a hand through his brown hair.

“Good,” I replied.

I heard Merielle’s steps approaching and instead of taking her usual spot next to David, she flopped down on one of the chairs nearby and hugged her chest while continuing to avoid me the same way I was avoiding her.

David cleared his throat. “Problems in paradise?”

“Shut up and bring me a beer,” Merielle silenced him.

“Make it two,” I said, averting my gaze.

David stood up and left the room, leaving Christian in a cage with two lions at each other’s throats.

I knew Merielle wanted what was best for me, but sometimes she turned into a controlling bitch and I couldn’t live my life based on her choices. Like any other human, I had to learn from my own mistakes that resulted from the decisionsImade.

She might have had more experience with guys and I know she didn’t want to see me suffering again, yet I couldn’t live by following a well-structured list to avoid anything bad happening to me.

Life was unpredictable and while it came with ups and downs, I preferred it that way rather than planning every step of it.

I could see Christian from the corner of my eye, directing his head from me to Merielle, his breathing being the only sound in the room. I did my best to ignore it, but I found myself turning to him.

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