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He ignored me when I jumped over the arm of the sofa and sat down next to him. Perhaps the morning news cycle was more interesting than I thought.
“What happened to Stella last night anyway?” I asked while chewing my toast. The way he tensed up at my innocent question told me what I’d already suspected. The fucker.
After Stella disappeared from the party, I figured Harley would chase after her. Cassie was pitching a fit over the way he’d dumped her and the sight of her tear-stained, snotty face was enough to send anyone running for the hills, me included.
So Harley’s disappearing act wasn’t too much of a surprise. I assumed he’d go to her room and then she’d blow him off. What I didn’t expect was him to stay there all night. And now I was a bit out of sorts about it.
There was nothing between Stella and me and I had no right to be jealous, but I liked her. I had a strong suspicion Brax wasn’t going to be too happy about Harley fucking her either. I knew he’d been chasing her the last few weeks, but he had missed all the drama last night after disappearing home for a couple of days.
Harley still hadn’t answered my question. I wasn’t sure why. We usually shared most things. “So did you go after her?” I tried again.
“Yeah.” He changed the channel to some inane talk show and we both pretended to watch it.
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“So nothing happened?” Jesus, it was like trying to introduce Brax to feminism: frustrating as hell.
“I didn’t say that.”
I was about to lose my shit with him. “You went to her room. Something happened. You stayed until morning. Does that cover the facts?”
He threw a cushion at me. “Stop digging! OK, so we fucked. Happy how?”
“Not really,” I admitted. Jealousy was not an emotion I was usually familiar with, but it rose up in my stomach like a bad case of food poisoning.
“Well it was probably a one-off, so don’t be jealous.”
I was mildly irritated he had correctly surmised the reason why I was poking the bear.
“Terrible then?”
There was a short silence. “No, the exact opposite actually.”
Now I was surprised. “If it was that good, why are you not going back?”
“She got all weird and practically threw me out. Not sure what her deal is. I thought we had a great time - well I did at least - but then she started panicking about people seeing me in her room. Not sure why when most girls see it as a badge of honor.” He huffed with annoyance, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed.
He scowled at me.
“Maybe this will teach you some empathy,” I pointed out, remembering all the crying girls he’d dumped.
“Fuck off,” he snapped before disappearing into his room and slamming the door shut.
Well, that was interesting. I grinned to myself. If Stella had blown Harley out of the water, maybe a different softly-softly approach was the way forward.
It looked like I’d be doing all my assignments in the library for the foreseeable. That way I could stalk my favorite grumpy technophobe.
Chapter 31
Brax
Mom’s hand shook as she poured another glass of wine. Before Dad died, she rarely drank, but in the last few months, her alcohol consumption had sky-rocketed. Not that I was in a position to throw stones. I spent most nights completely off my face on booze and weed. I’d have moved on to stronger stuff but getting kicked out of college for abusing hard drugs would only hurt Mom. She’d been hurt enough; we all had.
“How’s college?” she asked but the smile she gave me was wholly fake.
“Yeah, good,” I replied, playing the game, like always.
