Page 36 of Bitter Truths

It’s this burning need, and I don’t know how to explain it, but I keep thinking maybe his pain will ease mine.

“Griffin broke my heart, and I’m just, I don’t know, gonna show him . . .” I say, trailing off when he shakes his head.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he mutters, grabbing my arm.

“Why?”

“You wanna fuck up his world, fine. I’ll show him what he’s missing,” he says, waggling his brows. “But just know, even if it feels good at the moment, chica, in the end, it’s still taking a piece of you.”

Blinking in surprise, I cock my head to the side and study him. Aaron is an exceedingly kind, even gentle person, and I’ve never heard him speak so deeply or passionately about something like this. Is he speaking from experience?

“Oh,” I say, shifting uneasily under his solemn stare. “Look, I can’t let this go until he understands just how hard it is to look into his face. I want him to want me just as badly as I did him every time he took a chick back to his room and fucked her. I want him to need like I have for fucking years and then feel the slap in the face when he’s denied.”

He frowns, pressing a stray hair back from my cheek. “I get it. I do, but I worry about you.”

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” I muster a weak smile and meet his gaze. His eyes soften and he nods, his normally jovial smile absent.

“Okay, chica, but just, you know, take it easy.” He raises a brow, but it melts into a smirk when he eyes a chick across the way. “Hot damn, but there are some hotties here tonight.”

“Griffin wouldn’t have it any other way,” I say sourly, and he laughs in my face.

“Chica, revenge isn’t sweet if you have a stake in the game.”

“Maybe,” I mutter, but I’m not convinced. I have an itch to make him bleed, and nothing else will do.

“Besides, he’s obsessed with you, Hals. And I suspect you are with him too.”

His observation creates a bloom of pleasure in my heart, but I cut that shit off. “Yeah, he’s real obsessed, surrounded by chicks.”

Fuck, but it would be nice if I could look at Griffin and feel nothing. The thought of erasing what was once beautiful turns my heart into a cold shell, though, and it’s this fucking cycle of emotion that I can’t outrun. Shit. I’m more confused than I thought.

“He doesn’t appear interested,” Aaron says, and I glance back toward Griffin.

He’s turned away from the chick, who’s now pouting at his back. Still, where there’s one, there are plenty more because even as we watch, another steps up and smiles at him invitingly. Although I’m relieved when he pays her no mind, I convince myself that it’s a fluke until he grabs the girl’s hand and removes it from his arm firmly.

He looks so fucking good standing there, even from the back, with his wide shoulders and yummy ass, that for the briefest of moments, I falter. I feel an irresistible pull toward him, and longing flows through me before I give myself a mental slap. Griffin Hathaway made it his personal mission to ruin me.

So yeah, it doesn’t matter if he pushes a bitch aside, because I’m going to make him suffer even if I have to ignore the devastation I’ll feel after. I know my actions will push him back into the arms of one of those women waiting patiently for him in the wings.

Annoyed with my thoughts, I turn away, pressing the heel of my palm against the burning fury in my chest, which rises in direct relation to the images in my head I can’t see past. Did he laugh with Jason over me? Or maybe he told Jason I was a slut.

I don’t know, but whatever he did sent Jason on a mission, and I was the endgame.

“This is that important to you?” Aaron asks, and swallowing a lump I refuse to acknowledge, I whisper, “Yes.”

“Okay,” Aaron says with a friendly leer, “I’m available for Operation Fuck With His Head, anytime.”

Huffing out a laugh, I consider his offer, but with Aaron, there are no complications, and I want it to stay that way. My life is crazy enough as it is.

Absently, I scan the room, waffling now that I’m here. Maybe this is a bad idea. All of Griffin’s football buddies are here sans Jason and Will, and although I recognize them, I’ve only spoken to them in passing.

But then the crowd parts, and I meet David’s stare across the room where he’s standing near the kitchen. David and I met at Griffin’s lake house over spring break last year, and although he doesn’t make me tingle, which let’s face it, no guy except Griffin ever has, he was nice, and he liked me—until Griffin staked his claim. David backed away, just as confused as I was in the wake of Griffin’s bewildering change in behavior.

This was right before Griffin broke down and said he wanted me and couldn’t stand the thought of sharing, declaring I was his. And although it was supremely insulting, it also created havoc in my heart because it was the first time he admitted to feeling anything for me but eternal hate.

Glancing back at Griffin, I see he’s still chatting with his friends, a bevy of chicks surrounding him. David is perfect. He’s here and I already know him. Not only that, but Griffin has intervened more than once to keep us apart, seemingly under the guise of jealousy, although the jury is still out on that one.

Griff may be pursuing me now, but it was ever so easy to drop me before. How can I trust that his supposed feelings are even real? I can’t.

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