Page 71 of It's Complicated

“No buts.” Lori points a finger at me. “Don’t think you can stand there looking all sexy with your damp hair and sweatpants and mollycoddle me into forgiving you. If you were so into me you thought you might die if I got with Aiden, you could’ve done a million other things—”

“What things?” I snap.

“Tell me how you felt, for starters. Letmechoose who I wanted to be with.”

“You would’ve chosen him.”

Lori stares at me without speaking. Without denying it.

Her silence slices into my heart like a knife.

I chuckle bitterly. “At least I guess we have our answer now. For you, it’s always been him, it’s still him, it’ll always be about Aiden.”

“No,” she says in a whisper. “This hurts so much because it is aboutyou. The person I trusted for years with my innermostsecrets, the person I was about to trust with my heart. But now… how can I? Knowing what you did? Knowing how cold and calculating you can be?”

“So this is over?” I point between us.

“No,” she says, only ice and steel in her voice. “It never even started.”

Lori grabs her purse and walks past me, not sparing me a second glance. The door slams shut five seconds later, and I know she’s gone. I’ve lost her.

Two full glasses of vodka later, a soft knock on my door makes me jolt. I disregard the sound, it must be the alcohol that’s making me hallucinate my hopes coming true. Lori coming back to forgive me, for her to tell me she can’t be without me and that the past is in the past.

But that’s impossible. I saw the look in her eyes. Lori isn’t forgiving me any time soon. Maybe one day, we will go back to being friends, but everything else? Nah, I spoiled that for good.

When I hear a second knock, I sit straighter on the couch. I didn’t make that up—the knock was real.

“Dude, I know you’re in there,” Aiden’s voice comes from the other side of the door. “Open up.”

Real knock… still no girlfriend.

I groan. “Go away.”

“Not happening. Either you let me in or I’ll ask Denzel for the spare key, claiming it’s a medical emergency.”

“Then I’ll press charges for breaking and entering.”

“Come on, man, let me in.”

I don’t respond.

“I’m not going away until we talk. I’ll stay outside your door, pleading, all night if necessary. I’m sure your neighbors would be thrilled.”

Still, I say nothing.

“I’m serious,” Aiden yells. “Not gonna leave.”

My head is already throbbing, and all this yelling is making the ache worse. Cursing under my breath, I stand up and stumble to the door.

I fling it open. “Happy now?”

Aiden is standing on the other side holding a six-pack of beers, looking as well put-together as always in his elegant blue coat. But as he takes in my appearance, his eyes widen, and Mr. Perfect loses some of his composure. “How much did you have to drink?”

I shrug.

“I see these aren’t necessary,” he says, raising the beers and pushing his way past me into the kitchen.

Aiden puts the six-pack into the fridge and asks, “You’d be better off with a soda or a cup of strong coffee. Which one would you prefer?”

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