Page 16 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

Chapter9

Nikki

Lilly handed me a napkin,and I wiped my eyes, trying to hide the heat that prickled my skin and rose to color my cheeks. I couldn’t believe I lost control like that. Crying? Like a preschooler who didn’t get her way? What was wrong with me? Had I just… cracked under the weight of being hated?

“So, Harvey was being a dick, not acknowledging Kelly, like usual, and that’s what upset you?” Lilly asked, voicing each word slowly, trying to understand why I would sob over something like that.

I shook my head. “No. Well, yes. It made me so angry. Harvey and I were left alone for only half a minute, not even a full sixty seconds, and I was so rude to him. I called him a joke.”

Lilly’s expression shifted with understanding, her brows softening over her green eyes.

I focused on her encouraging nods. “I hate being like this. I wanted to be nice, I promised myself I’d be nice. But I just got so angry at him and… I can’t seem to control myself in that office, you know?” I slumped over my pastry, digging my fingers into it, tearing it into small cheesy, syrupy shreds. “He called me ‘Our Little Cutter’. Why can’t I stop being that person?”

I studied Lilly, looking for an answer on her younger face. Instead, I found her stiffening her shoulders, huddling them close to her neck, her usual playfulness turned to bunching brows and tension as she leaned forward.

“It’s not you Nikki, it’s them. It’s an office full of assholes.” She shook her head. “The way they treat you makes me so angry. One day I’m going to go into that office and–”

A large, dark shape that could only be Tristan hovered over the side of the booth, ending Lilly’s verbal tirade before she could work herself up. She looked at him and something seemed to pass through her as she shifted and slid out, promising to be back with more napkins. Tristan took a breath, and I watched as he debated whether to sit across from me or not.

A new wave of heat shot through my skin, and I tried to cover it with a sip of my coffee, wincing at Shawn’s not-so-great attempt.

“Are you alright, Nikki?” His voice was so soft that if it weren’t almost empty in here, I might not have heard it.

I nodded, still not looking up at him. “I’m okay now, I think. Thanks. I was interrupting, though, wasn’t I? You were with someone…?”

From the corner of my eye, he straightened just a bit. “Oh. Uh, that was Rochelle. She’s an art curator. She was here yesterday, and she wanted to have a look at my newest painting.”

There was something about his voice that made me look up at him. A lack of… something. Energy? Enthusiasm? I wasn’t sure. I searched his face and recognized how uncomfortable he was. Of course. Who enjoyed having small talk with someone they hated?

“You don’t have to… you can go, Tristan.”

His intense eyes swung to me, his brows knitting together. “Go? What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to try and make me feel better. It’s okay.”

His hard chest, the one that I was pressed up against only a handful of minutes ago, deflated. He braced his palms on the tabletop and leaned forward, his biceps and forearms taut and sprinkled with dark hair. Something shifted in my lower belly, and I looked away, taking another sip of my so-so coffee.

“I’m probably not good at it anymore. These days I seem to say the wrong thing when it comes to you. But I hate seeing you so upset. Is there anything I can do to help?”

He thought he said the wrong thing? Around me?I almost wanted to laugh. Instead, I looked up at him, our gazes meeting as I shook my head and offered him a halfhearted smile.

“No. But, if you could take my card today? I… Oh.”

I looked around the booth, my handbag nowhere to be found. Shit. I left the office without thinking to grab it. I walked out still gripping my laptop, and there it sat on the table, a silver slab of useless rectangular tech that couldn’t pay for my midday coffee.

“Don’t worry about it. You know I never liked taking your money anyway.”

There was a warmth to his voice that made me feel even worse as I looked back up at him and said, “I can come back later? I must’ve forgotten it…” I trailed off as he shook his head.

“It’s more than alright, Nikki. But if you do want to pay me back, you could…”

Immediately my mind jumped to the way he held me in his arms earlier. Would he ask me to forgive him? Would he forgive me? I missed being held tight like that, the way only Tristan could… would he ever want to get back to that?

“Come and check out my latest work.”

Oh. My shimmying chest sank. “You want me to take a look?”

He nodded. “You’re the most honest person I know. I want to know what you think.”