Page 77 of #Starstruck

“And now all the people from the magazine are mad, and you know nothing good comes from a bunch of angry Germans.” He let out a tired sigh. “I have to go and see if we can salvage this. Knowing I get to see you soon is the only thing getting me through this. I should be home by nine tomorrow night. Will you come over?”

I’d be able to get more information out of him in person than I could when he was trying to work. “Absolutely. Good luck. I lo—bye.” I hung up in a hurry, stunned at what I’d almost just done. I’d almost told him I loved him, when for all I knew he was using his lips to convince Amelia to do the interview.

The entire drive home I convinced myself I was fine. That I could trust Chase and he wasn’t cheating on me. But when I was in the safety of my own bedroom, I opened my laptop and started searching for the pictures of him with Amelia. A half hour in and I was sobbing.

Which is how Lexi found me. “Are you—are you crying?”

I was never much of a crier, so I understood her surprise. “No. A twig covered in dust fell in my eye while I was chopping onions.”

She sat on my bed. “Well, that’s not true. You would never chop onions.”

That made me laugh-cry and sniffle. She went to the bathroom and got me a box of Kleenex. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to calm down. “I think he might be cheating on me.”

“Why?”

I blew my nose and threw the wadded-up tissue into our trash bin. “There’s this woman from work who’s after him. She’s just like Amelia Swan.” Not just like. The actual Amelia Swan.

Lexi nodded. “I hate her already. And she’s going after Noah?”

I nodded, my throat feeling so thick. “I told you he was on that business trip, and she’s with him.”

She crinkled her nose. “I would hope he would have more integrity than that.”

“You and me both.” My breath was shaky when I tried to inflate my lungs. “The thing is ... the thing is, I keep wondering if he’s messing around with her because I won’t.”

“If you have to sleep with a guy to hold on to him, you never had him in the first place. Don’t doubt yourself or your decisions.”

She was right, but some part of me kept insisting I had to do something to secure Chase. To make sure he didn’t start looking around for someone who would give him what he wanted.

“Isn’t he coming home soon?”

“Yeah.” I sniffled again.

“Then you need to get in there and mark your territory when he gets back.”

I knit my eyebrows in confusion. “You want me to pee on him?”

“What? Ew. No. When you see her, you let her know he’s your man and she needs to back off.”

That wouldn’t be possible. “I’ve never even met her.”

Now it was Lexi’s turn to look confused. “I thought you said she was from the Foundation.”

That was the problem with lying. You started to lose track. “Right. I mean, I don’t really hang out with her or talk to her.” I pulled a thread on my blanket, unable to look my best friend in the eye thanks to the shame and guilt. So I deflected. “Shouldn’t you be telling me to ignore her and take the high road?”

“Meh. That road’s too high. We could fall off.”

I sat up and hugged her. I felt like the worst person in the world. After telling me everything would work out, she went to the kitchen to make dinner. She offered to cook me something, but I’d been crying for so long that eating was the last thing I wanted to do.

Plus, I didn’t deserve her food or her kindness. I had all these reasons, all these excuses, one even legal, for why I hadn’t told anyone I cared about that I had been dating Chase. But that’s all they were. Excuses.

And all I had done was lie. Over and over again. To the people I loved. Sometimes by omission, sometimes deliberately.

Maybe this was karma trying to teach me a lesson about being dishonest with my best friend.

Chase was my boyfriend. There was no reason not to tell Lexi. Even if he did cheat on me with Amelia, and twenty-four hours from now we’d be broken up, it didn’t matter. I needed to tell her. Once Chase was home. Then I would bring him over and explain the whole thing to her. If he was sitting with me when it happened, hopefully that would lessen the chance of her leaping across the room and choking me for stealing her lifelong crush.

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