AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Don’t tell her. Tell. Her.
She was about to hate me. Downstairs, “Creep” went into its awful chorus, with the guitar that sounded like someone was punching it.
“What?” Juliet said again, sharper now.
I cleared my throat, hoping against hope that I was wrong. “Does your boyfriend, ah, have long hair? Wearing a Pantera shirt?”
She knew, then. She must have picked up on something, put pieces together that I couldn’t see. Maybe he’d shown interest in the other girl before. Maybe he’d been gone from downstairs too long for a snack.
Her face shut down—there was no other word for it. The glint of mischievous humor drained from her eyes and the smirk dropped from the corners of her lips. She blinked, and I saw pure hurt in her eyes, open and raw.
“He’s with Naomi?” she whispered.
I was silent. I didn’t know the girl’s name.
“She said she was tired,” Juliet said. “She said she was going to sleep.”
I pulled away from the counter. “I’ll go tell him to get out of my house.”
“No, Finn,” she said.
“Yes.” I was mad now. I couldn’t control anything in this house, even this jerk who was no doubt now fucking that girl—Naomi—under my roof, cheating on his girlfriend. On Juliet. “He can knock it off and get out.”
I turned, but Juliet grabbed my wrist. “No, Finn,” she repeated.
Her touch on my skin was white hot—or maybe that was my imagination. I paused, speechless, waiting for her to say something.
There were tears in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. She blinked them back as she got control of her voice. “I’ll handle it,” she said.
“What are you going to do?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Don’t make excuses for him,” I said. I couldn’t get mad about anything in my own life, but apparently I could get mad about this. “There’s no question, Juliet. I saw her tits.”
She flinched. “I’m not in the mood for a bullshit scene. A bunch of drama. I’ll handle it my own way.”
“Handle it by dumping him,” I said as Radiohead howled in the background. “Handle it by telling him to go fuck himself.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“Don’t stay with him,” I begged her. “Don’t forgive him. Don’t listen to whatever line he gives you.”
“There’s nothing he can say that I haven’t heard before.”
Our gazes locked, and we stared at each other, at an impasse. This was it, the only moment we would ever cross paths. I would never see this girl again.
“You think you deserve it,” I told her. “You don’t.”
She flinched again, harder this time. She was so tough, this girl, and yet she wasn’t. “Fuck you, Finn.”
“Fuck you, too.” My voice was rough.
I stepped back, and she dropped my wrist.
“I’m going home,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter to me.” I shrugged. “I’ll be gone in a few hours. See you later, Juliet.”
