Page 125 of Pretty Obsessed

"Do you think anyone on the planet with the internet hasn't seen the photos of you two going on a date in the city for his birthday?"

"Ummm…" I checked my watch. "That was only a few hours ago. I wasn't out with him for his birthday."

"Being speculated about as well." He laughed but I could hear the disappointment in it.

"Do I want to know?"

"You two look pretty close in the pictures at dinner but I know what you two are, so my perception is jaded. People will talk about anyone he's out with. It's never going to matter what the truth is. Will that bother you?" He sounded genuine. Maybe he didn't hate me for doing this.

"After the rules I've put in place, I can't really let it bother me."

"Spill. There is a reason you're calling me in the middle of the night. So out with it."

"I told him we're only friends unless we’re in the same city. So we have an arrangement of sorts." I hated saying any of this to him. I knew it was coming before the words were even out of his mouth.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No."

"So Patrick breaks your fucking heart by cheating on you, and you just open yourself up to let someone else do this to you with your damn permission?" His voice seethed. This wasn't simple anger. He'd gone from one to ten thousand.

"It's a way to not get hurt."

"No, this isn't better. You're not going to see someone else. This isn't just a fling for you."

"How do you know?" I didn't even mean to get defensive, but I was.

"I saw the way you looked at him."

"That was lust. We were making out while someone else sucked his cock."

"I'm not talking about the club. I'm talking about last night."

"You can't see my feelings in a picture of us at dinner." I huffed. "As you said, you're reading into them because you know."

"No, I'm reading into how you two look together because I know you're fucking. I could have written it off as a crush on your part if I didn't know, but I know that look."

"What are you talking about?" I said hesitantly.

"Go look at the photos. I'll wait."

I put him on speaker and pulled up one of the gossip sites. I was splashed all over the front page. There wasn't a single photo. There were tons. My chest tightened. It was all there written in my eyes. Octavius was right.

"As your best friend, that's not how you look at your friends. I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at him. The stuff with Pat fucked you up. This, I'm scared will destroy you."

"There was more going on with Pat." Like burying my father.

"Tell me this won't?" He always called my bluffs.

"I don't know."

"And you're setting yourself up for failure from the start. What are you going to do when you see him like this with someone else? You're not going to be able to avoid it." I knew he was worried about me, but his words stung.

"I won't seek it out." I'd will myself not to look.

"You have that kind of willpower? Because I don't think even people married to celebrities have the willpower to avoid it all the time, and what happens when people start tagging you in it? When you get asked about it on tour? When people bring it up in questions and interviews?"

"I hadn't thought about any of that." My stomach turned and bile rose in my throat.

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