Page 122 of The Shake Off

“Payton likes Ace. Ace likes Payton and wants to try a relationship with her, but Penn had already ordered,ordered,” Kit repeated with a snarl, “her to break up with Ace, and he was really horrible to her I might add. Payton got too drunk, puked on Ace, then broke up with him.”

Murray’s head moved from Kit to me and back again.

“I think I’m going to need another drink to unpack all that,” he replied, downing the rest of his beer and walking off to the kitchen without another word, while I tried not to think about the fact I’d been outed for liking a boy as though I was still in high-school.

Because now I had to figure out how to get Ace back.

Along with the much easier task of telling Penn to go fuck himself.

TWENTY-FOUR

ACE

“Five minutes to wheels up,” the steward announced over the intercom.

I picked up my phone one more time, just to check, but the screen was blank. I hadn’t expected a message from Payton, but the tiny sliver of disappointment still stabbed me in the chest.

It had been a week of silence, from both of us.

I wondered if she was still hungover. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t messaged her… well, that, plus my parting shot of telling her to call when she’d pulled her head from her ass. I hoped it wasn’t still there.

I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone so drunk, or so bad tempered.

The other reason… I wanted her to miss me.

“Dude, you okay?” Lux asked as he tossed his bag into the seat next to me. He patted down his pants pockets and shucked off his jacket before sitting opposite me with a frown.

I nodded, turning away from the window to look at him. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Because you’re being real quiet.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“About Payton?”

I was about to answer in the affirmative when Tanner rocked up, lifted Lux’s bag from the seat next to me, and put it in the empty one.

“Why didn’t you just sit there?” I pointed to the formerly empty chair now housing Lux’s bag.

“I don’t like flying backwards.”

“You can’t tell.”

“The clouds go the wrong way,” he replied, as though that explained everything.

I didn’t argue; I had too much on my mind to get into a conversation with Tanner about cloud direction. Not to mention it was the middle of the night, and therefore too dark to see anything.

“Where’s Park?”

“He’s coming. He got stuck with the social media chick again.”

I looked down the aisle to see Parker walking slowly behind the steward handing around the pre-flight snacks and menus. Lux picked up his bag just as Parker reached us and dropped into the last empty seat.

“What took you so long?”

He shrugged. “I always get pulled over for social.”

“I think it’s because the girl running the social likes you,” I chuckled.

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