Page 44 of Veiled in Brick

“Ah,” she replied. “And you…”

“Pretended to be his girlfriend to get her off his back…turns out, that pissed her off and I got a face full of cider and a slap across the cheek for it.” I unhinged my jaw, testing its mobility, and then closed it, muttering to myself, “Feels better now.”

“Oh, God, okay,” she grumbled. “Remind me later to tell Luke to talk to Garrett—”

“Garrett?”

“New bartender; he needs to tell us who the girl was so we can make sure she’s eighty-sixed. Not important.” She rambled on, “What happened next?”

“Claire,” I whined. “I don’t want to relive all this, I’m fucking miserable.”

“Okay, okay,” she relented. “Give me the short version?”

I inhaled a deep breath and upon the exhale, rattled off, “Went back to Liam’s, he got all comforting, we got drunk and watched TV, he started to make a move and it was…”

“It was what?” Claire pressed me.

“I don’t—I dunno…quiet.”

“Quiet?”

I groaned. “All…sweet and nuzzly and his lips fuckin’ barely touched mine and he bolted.” Claire didn’t respond. She just looked at me with a long, blue stare until I finished with, “He freaked. Told me to forget it—said it was a mistake. Fuckin’ spoiler alert, Claire,” I sneered, “I can’t forget it now, and that’s not fair to Jay so I had to break it off with him. And now, I think I’m dying.”

An assertive knock sounded at the door. Claire’s red hair whipped to the source of the noise and back, and she clarified, “A mistake?”

“Did I mention that I don’t want to relive this nightmare?” I asked her sweetly. “You wanna get the door?”

She rolled her eyes, holding out an index finger in warning as she stood. “We are talking about this.”

“Sure, we are,” I murmured as I watched her walk away.

I pulled the comforter over my head, wishing that I could will myself to sleep instead of reveling in the dread that had settled in my bloodstream. The muffled voices from the front door were indecipherable until Claire called out to me in a loud:

“Uh—Zoey?”

“What?!” I yelled back.

“It’s for you!”

“Just let me fucking die in peace, Claire!”

“Not a chance,” her voice spoke loudly back to me as the front door closed. “Get the fuck up!”

I groaned, lugging my overly tired body out to the common area, and stilled as I took in the sight before me. The vase was yellow this time—a squat, square, opaque glass shape that housed twelve short-stemmed white roses.

“This shit again?” I complained. “How many times can the florist get our address wrong—”

“The delivery guy said they’re for you,” Claire stated from her usual spot at the table, her hands interlaced in front of her.

“This has got to be a mistake again, I—”

“Well, they wouldn’t be from James,” she noted.

“None of the others were from him either,” I retorted. “You know that—the guy that dropped them off literally said for me?”

“Delivery for Zoey,” she confirmed. “Yep…Liam?”

I snorted bitterly. “You’re hilarious, thank you for poking fun at my misery. Was there a note?” She produced a thin slip of white paper from between her hands, holding it between her middle and index finger and extending it towards me. I took the few steps to close the distance between us and took it from her. “Did you read it?”

---