Page 18 of We Met Like This
His forehead sank to my shoulder and his arms wrapped around my waist. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
I somehow managed to untangle myself from him, sure that when I was free and standing on my own, I would be grounded in reality again. “I just… this didn’t… this is wrong…”
I rushed out of the office.
CHAPTER 7
Sloane was sitting on the couch with Miles, her boyfriend, when I got home. Sloane had met Miles when we’d gone to a Dodgers game and the kiss cam thought they were a couple. The first three times they had just laughed and waved it off, mouthingstrangersto the camera. The fourth time they’d kissed. The crowd went wild. He’d asked her out at the end of the game. It was perfect.
I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. They were watching some reality television show, but I couldn’t tell which one at just a glance. Two empty wineglasses and half-full boxes of Chinese food sat on the coffee table in front of them. Sloane was wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, her feet pulled up on the couch with her.
I made a show of taking a twenty-dollar bill out of my purse, walking over to the bookcase against the wall, and placing it into the Bad Decisions jar.
“Twenty?” she asked, her chin going down to denote that she knew this was serious. “Tell me it’s not what I think it is.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, hanging my keys on the hook in the kitchen, ready to escape into my bedroom to spend time with a guy who could do no wrong—Lord Leopold from the book I was currently reading. He would ease the pit in my stomach.
“If you didn’t want to talk about it, you wouldn’t have done that.” She pointed to the jar. “You would’ve just lied. Or at least waited until tomorrow.”
“I’m ashamed and that was my penance so I can sleep. Hopefully.”
“You should’ve slept with flat-earth guy so that you weren’t so susceptible to you-know-who and his wiles.”
“I matched with twenty people in the car just now.” Another part of my penance.
“Twenty?Wow, you really do feel bad.”
“I also ordered at the counter instead of the drive-through at Jack’s.” I held up my bag of food.
“But there wasn’t a hot bad boy with a heart of gold waiting for your inside?”
“No,” I said with a pout.
“What is happening?” Miles asked, pausing the television. “I don’t understand a word of whatever secret language you two speak.”
I shot her a warning look. Sloane was the only person on the planet who knew my history with Rob and I hoped she hadn’t shared our best-friend secrets with her boyfriend of the moment. That was an unfair thought. They’d been together at least four months and she seemed to really like him. I was just jealous. So jealous. But still, I hoped my secrets were safe.
“Margot is horny,” Sloane said.
“Thanks,” I said.
Miles opened his mouth to speak and Sloane held up her hand in his direction. “I swear if you make a three-way joke right now, I’ll show you the door.”
He pantomimed zipping his lips closed. “Hadn’t even thought it.”
She laughed. I headed toward the hall, thinking I’d gotten the worst of my shame out of the way when Sloane said, “This is sabotage, you know. Either on his end or yours, and I can’t decide which is worse.”
An hour or so later I set my book aside right in the middle of a steamy scene. How dare my mind ruin my ability to appreciate Lord Leopold’s roaming tongue. Apparently, twenty dollars, twenty matches, and one opportunity for a random meeting weren’t fooling anyone into forgiving me of my shortcomings.
Thoughts on self-sabotage, I typed to Oliver.
I stared at my phone for at least five minutes, and just as I went to put it aside in exchange for my book, a message buzzed through.
Am I pro or anti?was his response.
Yes.
I guess it would depend on the context, but generally speaking, anti.
