Page 42 of It's Complicated

I take a step forward and freeze on the spot just as fast as a memory slams into me. That of the first night I wanted to tell her…

It was a little over a month after we’d started hanging out after gnome night. Aiden was out on a date, which meant I had our shared dorm room all to myself. I’d invited Lori over for a study session slash movie night slash woo-her night.

We’d started with studying, but soon enough, the textbooks were forgotten, and we were cuddled up on the bed, watching some horror flick. She kept burying her face in my chest at the most frightening scenes, and I was sort of sweating cold but it had nothing to do with the scary movie. I’d been working up the courage to kiss her all night.

When the movie ended she looked up at me, with those impossibly big brown eyes and said, “Jace, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you and Aiden date a lot?”

Yep, I thought, she wants to date me but she isn’t sure if I’m the serious-relationship kind of guy. And to be honest, I wasn’t back then. But for her, I would’ve been.

“Define a lot,” I teased.

“How many girls have you slept with since college started?”

It was two, not a wild number, but I wasn’t about to disclose that information. “Yeah, hard pass on that answer.”

Lori bit her lower lip. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell Aiden?”

That should’ve been my first clue, but I was still being too naively optimistic to catch up. “Yeah?”

“I think I like him.”

That’s when it all came crashing down. At that moment, a lot of her reactions over the past month began to make sense. How she seemed shier around him. How she’d light up whenever he walked into a room. Her constant blushing.

I felt like an idiot for not seeing it earlier. For thinking that maybe, just maybe, Lori might feel the same way I did.

In response, I scooted to my side of the bed, listening to her gushing about how perfect Aiden was, and I’ve kept my distance ever since.

And tonight, as I watch her laughing with Aiden’s brother, I realize that nothing has changed. Except now, it feels like the world is closing in on me. Like I’ll never be able to escape this feeling of wanting something I can’t have.

I take a deep breath and shake my head, trying to clear away the memories that are clouding my mind. This is not the time or place to be having these thoughts.

But then she turns her head and our eyes meet across the dancefloor, and I know I’m toast no matter what I do.

17

LORI

I’m fake dating Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde only Jace is Dr. Sizzle and Mr. Frost. In the past two weeks, he’s gone hot and cold on me so many times I’ve lost count.

Whenever we’re in character around someone, he can’t let go of me. He touches me constantly, keeps me close, plays with my hair, and the looks he gives me—those are enough to make me melt. And they don’t feel fake at all.

But the moment we’re alone, he shuts down completely, barely even speaking to me. He turns back into an ice block. The barbed wire comes out along with the “Keep Out” signs and a chasm spreads between us.

It’s like he doesn’t want to be anywhere near me. Every time I try to start a conversation with him, he either changes the subject or makes some excuse to walk away.

I’m so confused and so tired of pretending. First pretending I didn’t love Aiden, then pretending I love Jace, and now I don’t even know what’s real and what’s pretense. To hell with them both. Tonight I came dressed just for me in comfortable clothes—low-heel ankle boots, jeans, and a tank top—and I’m just going to have fun and not try to seduce any of my best friends or try tosort out my feelings for them. Especially not Mr. Frost—that is if he ever shows up. Jace is late.

Mr. Neat Freak is never late. And his tardiness is pissing me off way out of proportion. Or maybe it’s more the fact that he didn’t want us to come together or that he’s been so distant lately or that he hasn’t texted me to let me know where he is. I feel like he’s deliberately ignoring me, and I don’t understand why.

In the midst of my mental rant, I try to keep up with what Aiden’s brother is telling me while also giving appropriate answers in return. And I’m mostly succeeding, at least until I feel a prickle in my scalp and turn my head, meeting Jace’s eyes across the club. I lose track of whatever I was saying, the words getting stuck in my throat. All my good intentions of keeping to myself and of not having feelings for any of my best friends vanish into thin air because that man staring at me from across the dancefloor is not Mr. Frost, he’s very much Dr. Sizzle.

Jace looks unfairly hot in a pair of simple jeans and a black T-shirt that hugs his toned chest in all the right places. His dark hair falls in messy waves around his face, adding a touch of reckless sex appeal to his features.

And I don’t know how I should or shouldn’t feel, but I can certify that after he kissed me, I can state with 100 per cent certainty that I don’t see Jace as just a friend anymore.

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