Page 71 of Hexed
His face drops, confusion screwing it up. “You usually like it when I go places with you.”
“For moral support, not so you can torture yourself by being around someone who clearly still has you messed up in the head.”
“I’m fine.”
I laugh. “Yeah, okay. Sell it to someone who’s buying it, Gup, because your feelings are plain as day.”
“They arenot,” he hisses, but his eyes trail back to her. “Our past is just…complicated.”
I stare at him for a few moments, but when he says nothing else, I decide to let it go.
Who am I to talk, honestly? All I can focus on is trying to keep myself off Enzo’s dick.
“Whatever you say.” I lift my hands in surrender. “Listen, this is boring, and clearly Aria doesn’t need us. Want to do something fun instead?”
Fisher grins and nods, the front legs of his chair smacking on the linoleum flooring. “I’ll go start the car. You can say bye to the wench.”
He flicks his head toward Aria, making sure to not focus his attention on her.
It’s a little too obvious how hard he’s trying to seem unaffected now that he realizes I’ve noticed.
Aria’s deep in what seems like a very important debate with Jenny, and I don’t feel like talking to her anymore, so I shake my head and follow Fisher out instead.
He grins at me as we walk toward the door, but right before we leave, he glances back.
Protectiveness courses through me, because clearly Fisher can’t control himself around her.
All these years later, and I still don’t knowexactlywhat went down between them. Not all of it anyway. Our friendship was always separate from whatever the two of them had going on,but I know they used to fuck around, and I know that when she left, he was never the same.
I think he loved her, even. Although I’m not sure how it’s possible when she’s so fucking awful.
But I’m not a prier, and if Fisher doesn’t feel like it’s something I should know, then I respect that about him. It’s not like I’m sitting here sharing all my feelings about Enzo. I can barely admit them to myself. And they’re ridiculous anyway. Who has feelings after aweekof knowing someone? It’s absurd.
Fisher grins at me as he opens the passenger door to his ’72 Chevelle, and I pat his cheek before slipping into the bucket seat and putting on my seat belt as he slides in on his side and revs the engine.
“Where to, Short Stack?”
I strain my eyes, looking for the Maybach, and luckily I see it not too far ahead, about three stoplights up. “I want you to follow him.”
Fisher’s brows draw in. “Define ‘him.’”
“Enzo, who else would I be talking about?”
Fisher nods and pulls onto the main street, letting enough cars stay in between us so they won’t be able to tell they have a tail.
“So,” he says, “it wasn’t ever really about helping Aria, was it?”
I kick my legs up on the dash, grinning at Fisher when he glares at my feet. “What’s wrong with checking up on someone you don’t trust? Besides, it’s on the boss’s orders. You know how it is.”
Fisher shakes his head. “Why’s he got you chasing around after Aria’s fiancé anyway?”
Irritation nags like a gnat, and I pick at my fingers, not wanting to admit out loud that I don’t have a reason for a lot of things Uncle T is doing these days, because he isn’ttellingme.A melancholy sensation fills me at the thought that things are changing with us, and I’m not sure how to revert them. “Beats me.”
Fisher taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “I just want you to be careful, Short Stack. You’re good at what you do, but sometimes you get in over your head and don’t pay attention to what’s right in front of you.”
I blink at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He runs a hand over his chin and then looks at me and winks. “What, a best friend can’t look out for his number one girl?”
