Page 74 of No Romeo
His words were a knife to my heart, but still, a flicker of possessive rage rose. As hard as I tried to wrestle it down, I just couldn’t quite quell it. “Remember, Hendrix, what’s good for you is good for me.”
“And I expect the same opportunity not to be here to hear it,” he said, looking straight at me.
He was really doing this. He was prepared to let me be with a random guy. And that hurt far more than anything he might do with anyone else. Whatever Hendrix and I had been to each other, whatever I had done, he’d always seen me as his. I felt like a beloved pet dog whose owner had just driven it onto some back road, kicked it out, and driven off.
“Okay.” I nodded and tried to breathe through my tightening chest. “We’re not friends, Hendrix. We’re nothing.”
“Just like we’ve been for the past two years…”
“Yeah.” I turned and walked out of the room, not giving him a chance to see my tears fall.
Kyle only asked me what was wrong once during the hour drive to the Lancaster’s’ lake house. He knew when I said, “Nothing,” he should let it go.
Everything was wrong. The same way it always felt whenever Hendrix and I weren’t together. As though he were the center of my world, and the second he was gone, I just fell into chaos.
My mood remained bleak, even when we stepped onto the huge porch of the cabin-style house and Chad answered the door, an easy smile on his face.
I’d just introduced Kyle before a blur of pink barreled between Chad’s legs and Gracie collided with my thighs. “Lola! Lola!”
My little sister was the only thing that could make me forget about Hendrix Hunt. I scooped her into my arms with a dramatic huff. The glitter on her pink dress sparkled in the sunshine, her pigtails framing her cute little face.
“You’re so heavy now. Who let you get so big?” I teased.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, and her soft giggles rustled past my ear. “I eat all my vegetables.”
“Well, that must be it.”
She glanced over my shoulder. “Kyle came to visit me, too?” She looked past the both of us, searching. “Where’s Hendrix?”
Being a dick. “He couldn’t come, Jellybean.”
She shook her head. “It’s not nice to leave people out.”
“He’s not left out. He’s just busy.” Planning to get drunk. Planning to screw girls. Hating me. “Are you going to show me your new house?” I asked to distract her.
With an eager nod, she wiggled out of my arms, then took my hand, dragging me inside the fancy home. It looked like someone had taken a mansion and asked for a hunting cabin chic.
Antler chandeliers and sheepskin rugs dotted the hallways. Gracie pointed at the chandelier. “Mr. David said they aren’t real because he doesn’t like to kill animals. I like it. Do you like it?”
Before I could answer, she dragged me into a game room. “I’m going to ask Mr. David and Miss Emma if you can come live with us, too.”
A lump formed in my throat at that.
“They buy ice cream all the time and let you have bubble baths every night until your toes look like raisins.”
Forcing a smile, I picked up an eight ball and rolled it over the green felt of the table. “Careful. Your toes will drop off.”
She giggled, and I picked her up and tickled her feet until she squealed.
“We should go find everyone,” I said. “Miss Emma will think I’ve stolen you.”
“Youarestealing me.”
I trudged out of the room and through a massive dining room with the biggest table I’d ever seen outside of a magazine, then onto the back deck overlooking the lake.
Kyle, Chad, and Emma sat at a food-covered table while David tended a barbeque grill a few feet away.
I put Gracie down and sank into the chair beside Kyle. Gracie’s bare feet slapped over the wooden deck as she made a beeline to David. Smiling, he lifted her up to let her flip a burger.
