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Adam’s jaw works as he considers what to tell me before finally relenting. “Alessio decided to pretend nothing happened and not to tell her.”
I’m too stunned to figure out if he’s joking. But he can’t be joking, not about this.
“Are you serious?”
If Alessio plans onstayingwith Olivia, then he can at least be remorseful for cheating on her, not treating this vacation like a free pass to sleep with whoever he wants behind his girlfriend’s back! Adam shrugs a shoulder, and his uncaring attitude bothers me. He’s acting like this is any other day, like nothing is amiss, like it doesn’t matter to him one way or another if Alessio enjoys a week of cheating on his girlfriend, who’s also Adam’s friend, then returns to her like nothing happened.
“His girlfriend has been your friend since elementary school.
You’re the one who introduced them. You don’t even care?”
“Alessio can do whatever he wants, I’m not going to tell him what to do.”
What? Does he really not care about what’s going on? Is he seriously as unaffected as he’s making it seem?
“So, you’re not going to talk to Alessio? To at least convince him to come clean to Olivia? She deserves to know!”
“Lori, it’s none of our business,” he says patiently, like he’s explaining this to a petulant child. “I’m not saying anything to Olivia or Alessio because it’s not my relationship.”
I can’t believe he’s saying this right now. I get not wanting to mess with your friend’s relationship, but to not say something to him when you know he’s doing something wrong iswrong. As his friend, and asOlivia’sfriend, Adam should tell Alessio he’s being a complete ass! But he’s acting like this is no big deal, like this isnormal, and that it’s not his place to tell Alessio to get his act together. If Adam were really his friend, he’d tell Alessio that he’s wrong. Faye wouldn’t hesitate to rip me a new one if I was acting like that, and that’s why she’s a real friend. Real friends tell you when you’re messing up because they respect you enough to tell you the truth, and Adam’s not being a true friend to Alessio or Olivia by turning the other cheek on this situation.
“I can’t believe you’re cool with him repeatedly cheating on his girlfriend, then looking her in the face when you get back and pretending nothing happened!”
I would never be okay with being her friend and keeping something huge like that from her. If it was me, I’d want to know, and if I found out all my friends knew and never told me, I’d be doubly crushed.
“Just drop it, Lori,” Adam says, guiding me away from the door. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”
I push his arm away from me, not even able to stand his touch right now. Who is this Adam? The guy I’ve been getting to know over this vacation is nothing like the guy I’ve had a crush on for four years. Or maybe he is, and I’ve just been all too happy to ignore the signs, all too happy to mesh his face with the perfect image I had of him in my head, and I can’t fault anyone for that except myself.
“I can’t believe you,” I say, walking across the hall and down the stairs. Adam follows.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere that’s not here.” I don’t want to be around him right now. The night started off as so much fun, then turned on its head so fast. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, Adam’s hand on my forearm stops me, and by now I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s done that to me this week.
“Wait,” he demands, and I turn to face him. “What was that back there? The kiss.”
The blood drains from my face. The image of Alessio and Priyasha together made me forget all about our kiss and the reason I sought Adam out in the first place.
“The kiss?” I repeat to stall for time. Suddenly the anger that was building in my stomach completely burns out, leaving me in a panic instead.
I can’t tell him the real reason—that I froze trying to get him away from discovering Faye and Kellan. I might be upset with Faye, but I can’t throw her under the bus.
“Yeah.” He steps closer to me, his eyes laser focused on me.
“The kiss. Between me and you. About ten minutes ago.”
His gaze is so intense I almost shrink into myself, but I force myself to appear unbothered. “Oh. Oh,thatkiss! That was for the tasks.” It comes to me out of nowhere, and I try to channel my anger from before to make it more believable. “I crossed off all the things you said I couldn’t. Body shot, dance-off, all I needed was to kiss someone.”
I’m almost surprised at how steady my voice comes out, even as Adam’s eyes narrow at me.
“It was for the task?”
“Yes.” I back away from him. “You said I couldn’t do it, and I did.”
I didn’t do anything for him, and I completed the tasks because they were fun and I wanted to, not because I was trying to prove a point to him. But he doesn’t know that, and I’ll let him believe the kiss was just to prove a point rather than the truth, or have him think I kissed him for other reasons, like because Iwantedto.
“Yousurethat’s the only reason?” he asks, and the distrust in his voice only makes me more defensive. “Because body shots and kissing people isn’tyou, Lori.”
