Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Reid

I had my earbuds in and hadn’t heard someone coming up the stairs as I was leaving to go for a walk. But then she’d been there at the top of the stairs, giving me a brilliant smile and a greeting. A second later, all the blood had drained from her face and she’d said my name.

How did she know my name?

“Uh, yeah?” I asked, yanking out my earbuds. She probably knew me from Sapph. I stared at her face, trying to place her. You’d think I’d remember someone this pretty. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of blue-green that made me think of tropical ocean water. She wore sweatpants with paint stains on them and a ripped oversized T-shirt, her hair up in a ponytail. I couldn’t tell if it was brown or blonde. Some kind of in-between shade. Didn’t matter.

“Uh, yes? Do I know you?” I asked as she gaped at me.

“Reid Hayward?” she asked.

“Ummm,” I said, not wanting to confirm my last name. How did this woman know my last name?

She pointed to herself. “It’s Sophie. Sophie Love,” she said, and my stomach plunged to the floor as I blinked at her. Holy shit.

“Sophie Love?” I asked, searching her face. “Are you fucking serious?”

She bit her full bottom lip between her teeth. Had I thought she was pretty? Well, now she wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

“Yup. It’s, uh, been a long time?” That sounded like a question.

“Yeah, it has.” The last time I’d seen her, she’d been what, Thirteen? Fourteen? Something like that. She’d had braces and acne and had been kind of annoying.

She let out a long breath. “Soooo, how have you been?” Oh, were we really doing this? Pretending to do the small talk thing as if the last time I’d seen her, her older sister hadn’t been absolutely ripping my still-beating heart out of my chest and stomping on it in the front yard of their house while she watched from the window?

Fuck. That.

“I have to get to work,” I said (which wasn’t true, but right now I couldn’t remember where the hell I was supposed to be going), clenching my teeth and shoving past her, making her stumble a little. I should probably feel bad about that, but I didn’t.

Seeing her had ignited the rage that had been mostly dormant inside me for the past few years. Oh, it was back now. With a vengeance. People said that you never forgot your first heartbreak, but that was an understatement. Sophie’s sister, Kaylee, had literally ruined my life. I could barely even think of her name without wanting to black out with rage. Still. Time had dulled the pain, but not by much.

Fuck her. FUCK HER FOREVER.

Her sister could fuck all the way off too. She was guilty by association. Was that rational? No. But I didn’t care about being fair or rational.

My phone went off as I shook with anger outside and I remembered that Stace had agreed to give me a ride to Cade and Eloise’s house. Right.

Stace waved at me and I headed for her car that was parked near the entrance to my apartment.

“Whoa, are you okay?” Stace asked as I got in and slammed the door. Hunter had turned around in her seat with a smile on her face that fell when she saw my expression.

“You will never believe who moved into the apartment next to mine.”

An hour later my mood wasn’t any better, but I had a drink in my hand that I hadn’t had to mix, and a plate of excellent food.

“If you keep scowling like that, your face is going to get stuck that way,” Cade said, sitting down next to me on the couch. Everyone else was in the kitchen talking and laughing and I’d retreated to the sitting area near the kitchen. It wasn’t a full formal living room. No, that was in another area of the house. Because this place was massive. Eloise was a famous and wealthy author so it made sense. It always hit me a little when I walked in that my friend Cade now lived a completely different lifestyle from mine.

“Bite me,” I said, chomping on a carrot that I’d dipped in some lemon pepper hummus.

“Are you really going to be a grump for the rest of the night?” Cade asked, resting her head on my shoulder.

“Yes,” I said, and she laughed.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” I growled.

Cade sighed as she sat up and faced me.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said for what felt like the thirtieth time.

Cade searched my face and then nodded. She knew how I got when I dug my heels in. Once I got to that point, there was no use in pushing. I’d shut down or I’d leave.

“Hey, I have a new ARC for you. Do you want to borrow it? I think it’s right up your alley.” One of the benefits of being friends with a woman whose girlfriend was a famous author was the access to books I hadn’t had before. Cade got all kinds of advanced copies of books through Eloise and her work as an author assistant that she vetted and passed on to me and Hunter and Jo. Cade had impeccable taste and had never steered me wrong with a book recommendation.

“Yeah, give it to me.” I doubted a book was going to turn my frown upside down, but it might give my mind a little break. Ever since I’d seen Sophie, I’d been thrown mentally back in time to that night when I’d found out that not only had Kaylee applied and decided to go to a different college than I had, she’d also been cheating on me nearly our entire relationship with the same girl who’d made my life in middle school hell. It wasn’t possible to articulate the layers of betrayal. I didn’t even remember most of it. At least not after I’d thrown up on the lawn when she’d tried to touch me.

Somehow I’d driven home somehow and had gone right to bed. I’d stayed there for almost a week.

Cade brought me back to the present when she handed me the book.

“Thanks,” I said, wanting to take the book upstairs to the library and dive into it right now so I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

I downed the rest of my drink.

“Want a refill?” Cade asked, taking the glass from me.

“Yes please,” I told her.

“You got it.” She squeezed my shoulder before she got up and went to the kitchen. I watched her wind her arms around Eloise from behind and set her chin on Eloise’s shoulder. They were beautiful together, I had to admit. Hunter and I had been skeptical of the relationship at first, her more than me, but Cade and Eloise were in it for the long haul. Lucky them.

Love hadn’t worked out for me, but it was beautiful seeing my friends happy. Stace and Hunter were also plastered to each other and laughing at something that Cade had said. Eloise’s friend Camile and her husband John were also here, as well as a few of the new friends that Cade had made in the neighborhood. Jo hadn’t been able to come, but I wished she was here.

It was a nice group of people and I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of guilt for being the moody bitch scowling in the corner.

I couldn’t help it, though. They didn’t know what I’d been through.

Cade must have gotten distracted by her sexy girlfriend and forgotten about my drink, so I got up and went to make it myself.

“You don’t have to be a bartender here,” Eloise said as I measured everything into one of her shakers. I did love having decent supplies on hand. Eloise had the best of everything in her house, and that included her cocktail tools and top shelf alcohol. It would be a crime not to take advantage. Plus, I wasn’t driving.

I shrugged. She opened her mouth and I could tell she was going to ask if I was okay, but she seemed to change her mind at the last minute and gave me a smile instead.

I took my bad mood and my new drink back to the couch and pretty much stayed there the rest of the night until Stace and Hunter came to ask me if I was ready to go. I’d been ready at least an hour ago, but I didn’t want to be the annoying friend who begged to go home early.

I cringed the closer we got to my apartment, crossing my fingers that I wasn’t going to have another run-in with Sophie. She seemed like the kind of person who would want to hash it out. From what I remembered she’d been a yapper. Always barging into Kaylee’s room and wanting to talk about this and that and begging to go on our dates. More than once she’d almost interrupted us in the middle of sex.

Fuck. I hadn’t thought about all of this in detail for a long time. For the most part, I tried my hardest to forget about all of it. Now it was at the forefront of my mind again, as if all my anger and grief and hurt had been resurrected.

I hated it. I was so angry at Sophie for making me relive all this. I wasn’t sure if I believed in a higher power, but if there was one who had thrown Sophie in my path, that power was an asshole.

I glared at her door as I unlocked mine and stepped inside. I couldn’t hear any sounds coming from her apartment, but just knowing she was over there breathing was enough to make me want to pound on the wall and tell her to stop.

Yes, it wasn’t fair to her to convict her of her sister’s crimes, but I was tired and my social battery was drained and my skin was raw and I hated everything.

I groaned as I flopped on my bed and then screamed into my pillow.

Why? Out of all the places she could have moved, why here? Why right next to me ?

“Fuck,” I said as I tried to blink away tears. I hated crying more than anything. Hated it.

I sniffed and did my best to ignore them as they soaked into my pillowcase.

I hated this.