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“What the fuck?!”a voice screeches, and I pull away from Adam, too shocked to form words.I kissed Adam Murray. Hekissed meback.
Faye’s standing in the doorway, alone and fully clothed, glaring at me and Adam like she wants to rip our heads off.
“Stay away from Lori!” she shouts, then grabs my forearm and yanks me into the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
I’m still too numb to process anything. Did I really just kiss Adam?
“What the actual fuck?” Faye’s jaw is set and her eyes flash.
“You and Adam? Seriously, Lori?”
I’m taken so off guard by her anger that I stare at her for a few moments to collect my thoughts. She doesn’t seem bothered by my lack of speech as she continues.
“I know you’ve always had a crush on Adam, but you can’t act on it! It’sAdam! You can’t seriouslylike himorbewith him!”
I’ve never seen Faye like this. Is the thought of me and Adam together so terrible that it sends her into a blind rage? What if I did want to be with Adam? Would she have a real problem if we got together? If we had feelings for each other that we wanted to act on? From the way she’s pacing and her flared nostrils, it’s clear that she would.
“I can’t believe you kissed him!” She continues her rant but stops pacing to focus on me. “Never do that again. You can’t be with Adam. You’re my best friend, and he’s my brother.”
“Do you not realize how selfish you sound right now?” I ask, finally shaking off my shock. It’s not even about Adam, not right now. The longer she talks, the more upset I get, and right now I’m more upset that she cares more about her own feelings regarding me being with her brother than caring about if I actually like him or not. “If I wanted to be with Adam, then you should be happy for me.”
Faye looks taken aback. “I’m not selfish! Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Now we’re staring each other down and there’s a sort of electric tension in the air that only riles me up more. “Maybe because it’strue! I’ve been locked out of my room two out of four nights, not including today. I’ve barely seen you all trip because you’ve been busy concocting this ridiculous plan to make Kellan jealous instead of just telling him how you feel.
And you’ve been really mean to Kiara even though she’s really nice, in fact, she spent more time with me last night at the club than you did!”
“Oh, grow up, Lori. Do you seriously want me to hover around you the entire time? You’re a big girl, you don’t need me to hold your hand twenty-four seven. You were fine. You were having fun. Plus, I only had this roomoncewith Kellan, and you came back after. I never kicked you out.” She flings her arms out as if making her point is exhausting. “Besides, I told you all about why I’ve been acting all fucked up lately, and you said you understood. I thought we were over this. I didn’t know you were going to keep being dramatic about it.”
I don’t want to consider if there’s any truth behind her words, and instead feel a kernel of anger burning in my chest and hold on to it, flaring it to life.
“I’m not the one being dramatic,” I fire back. I’ve never been this angry before, not at Faye, not that I’ve ever vocalized. “You’re the one who got all huffy about seeing me with Adam!”
She doesn’t want me to be with Adam because he’s her brother and I’m her best friend? Does she not realize how hypocritical that is?
“Yes! You shouldn’t be with Adam! You can literally get any guy you want by blinking in his direction and he’ll fall at your feet, and you want mybrother?”
Her words shock me to the core. She’s got our roles mixed up.She’sthe one who can get any guy to fall at her feet. I can’t do anything except trip over my feetandmy words in front of any guy I like.
“That’s not true and you know it,” I accuse, though it comes out just barely above a whisper.
She laughs. “You’re so busy being insecure that you don’t realize people fall over themselves to get a moment of your attention. You walk into a room, and everyone stares at you, Lori, and you hide from that because you hate attention.
You don’t even realize that they’re not staring at you because something’s wrong, but because you’re so fucking pretty and perfect and have all your shit together and they just can’t help it.” Her breathing is coming out harder now, and apparently, she’s not holding anything back. “What I have to work so hard at comes so easily to you, and you don’t even realize it.
Dean barely knows you and he’d already do anything for you, and now you have Adam wrapped around your pinky finger!
Meanwhile, Adam’smy brotherand he can barely stand me, and I can’t even get one guy to like me for anything more than a cheap hookup!”
My head swims as her words sink in, and before I can even process, the door to the bathroom swings open and Kellan steps out.
“I was trying not to interrupt to give you time to sort out . . . whatever’s going on here . . . but clearly it’s getting out of hand,” he says, looking back and forth between the two of us. “Faye, you can’t tell Lori who she can and can’t kiss.”
She looks absolutely appalled that Kellan would take my side over hers. It only adds fuel to her fire. “I can if the person she’s kissing is my brother!” she shoots back, and Kellan’s face grows grim.
This is going to turn into a very different conversation, and I don’t want to be here for that. Plus, that anger burning in my chest is growing the longer I stand here in front of Faye, the longer I absorb her words, the more we shout at each other. I back toward the door, but I can’t resist throwing some parting words.
“You have no right to say any of that. And besides, the only reason I kissed him is because he was about to walk into this room and see his best friend fist-deep in his little sister, and nothing else would distract him. So, you’re welcome.”
