Page 45 of Pick Me

And wrong she was.

“Look, I don’t want to mess with your business or anything.”

“But you’re going to, anyway,” I snarked, shifting in my seat.

“I’m your friend. It’s my duty to tell you the truth.”

“There’s nothing you could tell me that would change my view on this.”

“I’m not so sure. He came over the other day—”

I closed my eyes. “Please don’t try to explain Jackson out of this hole. He doesn’t deserve that, and I don’t want to hear it.”

I wrapped an arm around my waist, covering myself from Britt’s glare. She might not judge me, but with her being tall, gorgeous, and thin, I often felt like I didn’t live up to her potential.

“I’m not going to explain that idiot out of anything, but I’m going to tell you something interesting he said.”

“You mean he had something interesting to say?”

“I thought so, and I think you will too.” She beamed as I waited for her to continue. “I may have mentioned I thought you guys had a little crush on each other.”

“Britt!”

“Let me finish. Please.” She took a breath, which I could only assume was for dramatic effect, then continued. “He vehemently denied it.”

“See. I told you.” Something about that comment made my stomach lurch. He didn’t just deny it, he had to make a show of it. I got it. He didn’t think I was attractive, but he was hell-bent on everyone else knowing this.

“He denied it for all of thirty seconds. Then he started malfunctioning like a robot.”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“Because he did it straight after he mentioned your purple onesie. It was like he went off into unchartered parts of his mind, and we couldn’t get him back.”

“That’s easy for him. I’m sure most of his functioning brain is unchartered.”

“There was something there, I’m telling you. His face went all mellow and gooey. The same face Matty gave me when we were dancing in Las Vegas.” There she went, off on her own cartoon princess tantrum again. I stared at her, unimpressed and unbothered by her statement.

When she realized, her shoulders dropped and she frowned. She really was a cartoon princess. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because if he liked me, he wouldn’t have had a problem taking me to Reign and Devin’s wedding.”

“Uh, you’re looking at this all wrong. That was before heknewhe liked you, though. He only realized he liked you after the dinner we had with him.”

“You mean the dinnerbeforehe brought Grace home and shoved the fact he was going to have sex in my face.”

Britt went quiet for a second, and I hoped we could move on from this weird discussion. “Are you sure they slept together?”

“Yeah.” My voice was shaky because I was lying. I wasn’t sure. I’d stuck my headphones in so I couldn’t hear a thing. The only real evidence I have of what happened last night was Jackson telling me this morning that he didn’t sleep with her. Something I still didn’t believe, so I would keep that tidbit to myself because Britt would take that fact and run with it. “That’s why I think you’re reading too much into it. He probably looked away wistfully because he had gas.”

She huffed, shaking her head in irritation. “I didn’t want to have to do this,” she said as she pulled her phone out and swiped through something. I couldn’t see from here, but I could tell she was serious by the vigor in her swipes.

“What are you doing?” She shoved her phone in my face, and I went cross-eyed trying to take in whatever it was she wanted me to see.

Messages. She was showing me her messages. A group chat from what I could tell. “Who’s name is Ignore?”

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