Page 47 of All Your Firsts

“Because I promised—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” I say as I raise a hand. “Your promise to Gage went out the window the second you decided to hump me against the wall.”

He cringes and nods his head. “I know.”

The moment I bring up my brother, his gaze loses its intensity, and a melancholic air settles between us.

This is why he freaked out the other night. He feels like he betrayed my brother. I’m such an idiot.

That notion definitely stings less than all the other thoughts running through my mind over the past few days.

“Come on, I’ll walk you back to work,” he says as he turns in the direction of Sweet Escape.

His mood swings are giving me whiplash. Cold and detached, playful and flirty, then territorial and brooding, and then he ignores me, only to repeat the cycle.

I just don’t understand.

Jess and I walk up the dimly lit stairs to the middle row. I plop the extra buttery popcorn into my mouth before taking a healthy sip of my Shirley Temple. I sigh with pleasure. The perfect amount ofsalty and sweet. We find our seats, and I recline the black leather chair back as far as it can go. The tension of the day leaves my body in a flash.

“Shit. Do you have my candy?”

“Yeah,” Jess says before discreetly pulling my candy out of her bag. We smuggled our own snacks in because who wants to pay five dollars for one small box? Not me.

I take the Sour Patch Kids, empty them into my popcorn, and give them a shake. Hopefully, they’ll be nice and gooey soon.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Elevating my popcorn.”

“That’s gross.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“I don’t know about that, but this is by far the best idea after how busy we were today. My feet are killing me,” Jess says as she devours her nachos.

“Agreed. We should make this a tradition every week.”

“Deal,” Jess says as she clinks her slushy with my drink. “They have classics night every Thursday, like tonight, and I’m so down. As long as your guard lets you out, which I’m surprised he did, by the way.”

“So am I. I texted him, and all he said was okay.”

The mention of Vic has my stomach bottoming out. I haven’t told Jess about the incident yet. I’m not even sure how to start. But I have to tell someone. It was big. Maybe not for him, but it was for me. It meant something, but I’m not sure how to feel about it.

I look over at Jess who’s reading the trivia on the screen.

“We had an incident.”

“An incident?” she asks as she gazes over at me.

“Well, you know how I had my shift at the bar...”

“Yeah, I keep asking, and you keep clamming up. You totally disappeared that night.”

“Vic made me leave.”

“I figured. I didn’t see him either.”

“Well, we left, and then we... umm…” I let out a nervous laugh.

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