Page 80 of Friend Me

He didn’t even look up. “Can’t ever see stars here. Too much light polloosh—pollution.” He belched softly.

I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, headlights swept the curb.Thank Copernicus.I guided Cooper into the backseat of the car and watched it drive away.

When I turned back toward the house, Tyler sat on the front steps, arms looped around his knees. His long coat pooled around him on the step. My heart skipped in my chest. At least we’d be doing this without an audience of partygoers. I didn’t owe him an apology, but I owed him an explanation after I’d told him I wouldn’t be chasing Cooper anymore.

I trudged up the stairs and sat next to him on the cold wooden porch. The breeze fluttered my long white skirt around my ankles.

Staring out at the street, I said, “Look, I—”

At the same time, he said, “Congratulations.”

I blinked at the bitterness in his voice. Where had sweet, sunny Tyler gone, and who was this snarling doppelganger? “What?”

“Operation Prince Charming. Looks like it worked. You’re welcome.”

I’d never seen him this angry before. Had something upset him at the party? Or before? “No. It’s not like that.”

He stood, and his right-hand fingers tapped out a furious rhythm against the satin of his breeches. “We were friends, Marlee. And you used me to get what you wanted. And the worst part is I let you. I can’t believe I fucking let you.”

It was late October, and the weather had turned chilly. But that didn’t explain the cold that gripped me like I was on the ice planet Hoth instead of a street in San Francisco. I had to tell him I’d been wrong to use him, that I didn’t even want Cooper anymore. But if I was on Hoth, he was on Tatooine. His face had gone all blotchy red in the porchlight. Heat radiated from him.

“I’m done. No one can compete with Cooper Fallon.” His arms fell to his sides, and he looked down the sidewalk toward Cooper’s abandoned silver Tesla. In a low voice, he said, “I can’t.”

When he walked away from me, I was in the Death Star’s compactor, hardly able to breathe through the weight compressing my chest. And I didn’t want to think about why.

R2-D2 couldn’t save me. This princess had gotten herself and her friend into this trash heap. And now I needed to find a way out.

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