Sweet (True Believers #2)(30)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Yes, I was conscious that I left the “good” part out.

What can I say?

He was the one who seemed to think I was deserving of my last name.

I knew that when I was hurt, I wasn’t all that nice.

And he had sliced me deep in several spots.

Which meant if he had the power to hurt me like that, I was falling hard for him, and it was better if we didn’t start down a path that was going to result in me being pathetic.

It was small comfort at the moment that I was preventing myself from future weight gain from heartbreak. Someday my ass would thank me, but now it just sucked.

Chapter Nine

After eight hours of sleep, I emerged from my room, hoping that Riley and I could just pretend the night before hadn’t happened and go back to our easy companionship.

But he wasn’t even home.

Which surprised me, because it was Sunday, and he didn’t have to work. We had been planning to finish the house cleanup in anticipation of his brothers coming home on Monday. I poked around, but there was no note in the kitchen, no text on my phone from him. He just wasn’t there, and empty, the house felt lonely. Which was dumb, because I’d been alone in the house before, but this was different. It felt forlorn in the aftermath of our fight, if you could call it that.

After eating a yogurt and drinking a soft drink, I showered and decided that Riley or not, I was going to finish the job I’d started. For ten minutes, I Febrezed the shit out of the couch to get the smell of smoke out of it. I dumped the ashtray in the trash bin out back and after rinsing it with the hose, set it on the picnic table. The smoking lounge in the living room was closed as far as I was concerned.

Then I took the pictures we had printed from his phone at the drugstore as eight-by-ten-size prints for less than twenty bucks, and the roll of bright blue polka dot duct tape I had bought, and started to hang them in the hallway. There was no way we could afford to buy frames for eight pictures, so I had figured the decorative duct tape would have to do. It would look like a design choice, not cheap.

It looked fantastic, I have to say, a neat row of black-and-white family shots all down the hallway, moments of joy and togetherness. I was proud of having giving the Mann brothers a nicer environment to live in, to display their unique pictures on the wall, to give them a visual sense of what they already knew. But at the same time, it made me felt lonely all over again. Riley had insisted on printing our mustache shot, since he said it was my hard work that was saving his ass, and I deserved to be on the wall, but now it felt out of place. Even though I put it last, right before the door to Riley’s bedroom, where the boys would never really see it, it still felt like I was intruding among the shots of Tyler and Jayden and Easton goofing off, and Riley’s tattoo, cropped in tight.

Lonely didn’t sit well on me. It makes me do things I shouldn’t.

Like answer Bill’s random “want to hang out” text with “you should come over.”

Yes, I am that stupid.

But I couldn’t just wander around that house, alone, bored. There was nowhere to go. Robin was at her parents’ house for church and a Sunday dinner thing. I had no car, and no desire to figure out the bus schedule to take me wherever. I had nowhere to go. Riley could be home any minute or not until tomorrow. I had no idea where he was or why he’d left without a word.

Bill was offering a distraction. I was taking it.

Not that I had any intention of messing around with him—I was mixed up about my feelings for Riley, and anyway, Bill had shut the door on that part of our relationship.

Relationship. What a loaded word. One I’d never liked, and now, after the hot mess of the night before, absolutely hated.

I figured Bill could come over, help me hang the blinds in the living room, then we could leave and go to the movies or something.

But Bill didn’t know anything about hanging blinds. “What do I look like, a handyman?” he asked, dressed in plaid shorts and a polo shirt. “I’m a chemical engineering major.”

“Which is why you should know how to do this,” I said, shoving the instructions in his hand. “It’s all math and spatial acuity.”

“Forget it.” He didn’t even look at them. “I’m sure I could figure it out, but the answer is no.” Wiping his forehead, he fanned himself. “Fuck it, it’s hot in here.”

“You’re mean,” I said. But it was a halfhearted pout. Really, why the hell would he want to hang blinds in Riley and Tyler’s house? Sometimes I forgot that just because I wanted something to happen in the next five minutes, that didn’t mean anyone else shared my enthusiasm or narrow focus.

I also realized that I didn’t actually want Riley to come home and see Bill in the house. Regardless of how innocent it was, now that Bill was standing here, I knew it would not sit well with Riley.

Bill just laughed. “Jessica, I admit, that usually works on me, but it’s too hot in here to do anything. It’s like a hundred and ten degrees in this house. How are you living here without suffering heat exhaustion?”

“My room has air-conditioning. Let me go change and grab my purse and then we can leave. Come on.” I indicated he should join me. I didn’t want him to melt on my behalf.

“Oh my God, that’s better,” he said as we entered the cool sanctuary of my room. He plucked at his shirt. “It’s like existing in a wet towel.”

“I think I’m getting used to it.” Truthfully, it didn’t bother me as much as I would have expected.

“So how is it, living here with Riley?” Bill asked, sitting on my bed.

I shrugged. “It’s fine.” Digging through my suitcase, I found a cuter top than the shirt I had slept in. “Close your eyes,” I told him.

He obeyed, but he said, “I’ve seen you naked.”

“I know. But it’s different now. We’re just friends, we’re not going there anymore.”

“I can handle seeing you in your bra.”

Why did that sound vaguely insulting? “You’re the one who wanted us to be just friends. I’m trying to respect that.” What the hell was with guys? No matter what I did, they wanted something different.

“But you don’t have to act like I can’t control myself.”

Oh, for the love of God. “Fine. Open your eyes. I don’t give a shit.” Idiot. I pulled my knit shorts down so that I could put on denim shorts instead and rooted around in my suitcase in my bra and panties. It was like wearing a bathing suit, and he was right, he had seen me naked. I didn’t feel like discussing it any further.