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“Stop hiding facts when you’re shit at it. You’re totally going to confess to him like a lovesick idiot today,” Remi says.
“Which is why you invited the parents. You knew he wouldn’t come if his mum didn’t drag him along,” Lan says.
I stare at Cecy, my eyes nearly bulging out. “You…you told them?”
“I swear I didn’t.” She juts a finger in Remi’s direction. “He eavesdropped when we were in the south of France and blasted it all over their little group chat.”
My heart falls.
My skin crawls.
I think I’m going to throw up.
My voice sounds foreign when I speak. “The group chat withEliin it?”
Bran offers me a sympathetic smile and nods once.
“Oh God.” I nearly faint against Cecily.
“You went too far, Remi.” She points at him again. “You had no business sharing that secret.”
“Bitch, puh-lease. At this point, everyone from the royal family to the local delivery office knows about her little crush.”
“Including Eli, if that doesn’t imply it,” Lan says with a wicked smile. “He just chooses to behave as if you’re a wallflower whose existence he couldn’t care less about.”
“Lan!” Bran chastises. “There’s no need to be mean.”
“He didn’t react in any shape or form to Remi’s text,” Creigh speaks for the first time.
“Or when Lan and Remi egged him on for days,” Bran adds. “So maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
I know Bran and Creigh are trying to make me feel better, but that’s no consolation at all. Maybe the reason he didn’t react is because he really doesn’t care. Indifference is worse than interest.
“Are you both high?” Lan huffs. “That’s the worst. It’s no different than him pretending she’s nothing more than a speck of dust on his shoe, more than he’s already been doing her entire life. You want my advice, don’t do whatever you’re planning, Ava. You’re the only one who’ll end up with a broken heart.”
“Leave her alone.” Cecy hugs me and strokes the tremors in my shoulders. “This is not your place and no one asked for your advice.”
“I’m trying to save her the waterfall tears and an impending visit to her therapist. But suit yourself. It’s not my fault no one listens to me when I’m always right.”
“Yeah, Ava.” Remi keeps his attention on me as he swats Ari’s hand off his bicep as if it’s a mosquito. “He’s twenty-three and gets more pussy than Casanova, but unlike that loser, he never actually works for it and doesn’t pay any attention to the women attached to it. He never sleeps with the same woman more than twice and doesn’t recall their names, even if he’s hit upside the head with it. Do you honestly want to be one of them?”
“No. I’ll be the exception.”
“What exception? He barely knows you exist.”
“That’s…because I was underage. He didn’t see me as a woman before.”
“News flash, he still doesn’t,” Lan says. “You and Ari are the same in his eyes.”
She’s almost fourteen. I’m way older and definitely past the age of consent in the UK. I’ve had a crush on Eli since I was twelve and started to develop hormones. I visited Aunt Elsa all the time just to get a glimpse of him, even if he barely acknowledged me. Even if he didn’t see me any differently than he did his cousin Glyn.
That was okay. I know the age difference didn’t work in my favor and an eighteen-year-old would’ve never looked at a twelve-year-old.
So I waited a whole five years to grow older and seem adult. I even stopped sleeping with stuffed animals to completely throw away the child phase.
“That’s not true!” I say.
“How does Eli treat you, Ari?” Remi asks her.
