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"I know," she admitted. "It pissed me off when he started talking about wanting you to scratch him. I mean, we'd just had sex again. I gave him the BJ of my life, but obviously not his, the way he was talking about you."
Ouch. If I were April, I'd be hurt too. "You know that he and I are friends. Best friends. We've always had that kind of banter and we always will. If he's really the one for you, that shouldn't matter.”
"I don't know if I have the stones to be with a guy like him. He's so hot and he could have any woman he wants. Why would he pick me?"
A gamut of emotions washed over me. I'd just been saying the same things in my own head. Why, indeed? "Well, you should have thought about that before you told him you wanted him for himself. He's not perfect, April. He has doubts, and insecurities. We all do, even guys that look like him. And I guess even women who look like you, too. Have you seen yourself lately?"
"I guess there is always someone who is going to be prettier, smarter and skinnier."
Back to that again. "Why do you assume that skinnier is always better? Why can't someone just want to be with you because you're you?"
"Because it doesn't work that way." April sighed.
"Really? You just said that to me?" I thought about what Kieran had said. That he was definitely aware I was a woman. That he hadn't tried to get in my pants because he loved me.
April worried her lip and I could see that she was conflicted, but after what she'd just said, I didn't really care. "Hurry up. Don't be that chick who doesn't go home."
She looked like I'd just hit her and I might as well have. "He invited me to breakfast."
"Of course he did. We're all going. So you can't very well sit here in his room while we go eat, can you?"
She pushed her feet into her shoes. "Yeah, I'm coming."
I could have been nicer, but if no one else cared about my feelings, why should I worry about dancing around hers?
I knew this would happen. As soon as he started shagging my friends, things would go straight to shit.
I almost wished it had been anyone but April. She was the "pretty girl" who got everything. Everyone wanted to be her, know her, or fuck her. I was jealous, I could admit that. Who wouldn't be? If the universe had been listening to me, Gavin and April would have gone home together.
But I wasn't the girl whose wishes came true. I was more like the Wicked Witch. I had to plot, scheme, and claw for every bit of good that came my way.
Which was a reminder I should have been working on Chubbalicious rather than worrying about any of this crap.
Now I had to go sit through a breakfast which I'm sure was going to be awkward and uncomfortable. I'd rather just go back to my room and work on the website.
Except when I came out of Kieran's room, Brant was waiting for me and all my anxiety vanished. I don't know why he had that effect on me, but he did. Everything seemed simpler when he was around. It was as if his very presence was like a dose of bitch, be cool.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I thought we were going to IHOP?”
He shrugged. “If that’s where you want to go.”
“You’re being too nice to me.” Mostly because I felt like I didn’t deserve it.
He raised a brow. “Do you think I should treat you badly? Claire, I haven’t done anything for you I wouldn’t do for any of my friends.”
“If you treat your friends this way, I can’t imagine how you treat your girlfriends.”
Brant eyed me like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. I probably shouldn’t have brought up the subject of girlfriends anyway, considering I’d told him I didn’t want any kind of commitment.
April emerged from the bedroom and I saw she still wore Kieran’s shirt and a pair of his boxers-like shorts. She’d managed to snag a pair of my sneakers and her hair was tucked up in a bouncy ponytail. “Ready.”
“I’ll drive,” Kieran offered.
“Did we decide where we were going?” Brant asked.
“The usual. Unless the girls want something else.”
“I’m just going to have more coffee, so whatever Claire wants,” April demurred.
I wasn’t going to let her keep me from eating, even if all she had was coffee. I wasn’t going to be one of those girls who didn’t eat because she was with a man. I nodded and we shuffled into the backseat of Kieran’s Challenger.
It was a tight fit, but Brant had no qualms about pulling me into his lap. Probably because my breasts were shoved into his chin.
“Jesus, Claire. Are you trying to kill him?” April joked.
It hadn’t occurred to me until now how often April said things like that. How often she poked at my weight, or my size, or anything else that she knew I was sensitive about. I acted like I didn’t care, so maybe she thought I really didn’t.
