Page 47 of Play Fake
“I’m sorry to hear you’re hurting, yes,” I say, wishing I wouldn’t have to have this discussion with him in public, in front of our friends. And frankly, wishing we didn’t have to have it at all. I was surprisingly content with the radio silence between us since I ignored his texts.
“I’m fine. Just wish I had done things differently. A lot of things differently.” He looks at me with regret, and I crumple my lips into an uncomfortable smile.
He nods to the spot beside me in the booth, and I scooch over to allow him in, again, against my better judgment. I feel nothing for him right now but pity. But even I can still admit Ezra is as attractive as ever, and incredibly persuasive when he wants to be. It’s half the reason I fell in love with him in the first place.
Which is why I need to be on my guard. Giving him an inch could easily lead to a mile and having my guard up all night is going to take monumental effort, especially when I do, in fact, miss old times with our friends. I’m pretty sure he was betting on all of that when he asked Ally to arrange this little surprise foursome.
* * *
Several drinksin and the atmosphere has relaxed quite a bit. Ezra hasn’t done or said anything to cross a line with me, and I’m almost feeling like my old self amongst these friends again.
That is, until I take another sip of my drink and suddenly feel eyes on me. A look so searing I almost feel like my flesh is heating beneath it, and when I raise my eyes to find the person the look belongs to, my breath catches in my throat. Waylon.
He’s at the bar with a group of friends, no one I know well, but definitely people I recognize from Olivia’s parties at the house, including more than one female friend of his. His hair is down, and he’s wearing a tight-fitting dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. His pale blue eyes skim over me and the rest of the people at the table with me, and I swear I see a flicker of judgment before a smile grows across his face, replacing it.
I can feel the sunburn on my cheeks heating with a tinge of embarrassment because I can already guess what he’s thinking. I said I was going on a date but nothing serious and now I’m sitting here snuggled up with my ex in a booth at a bar.
I want to disappear under the table, but I can’t, so instead I just sit there helplessly while he ever so slightly raises his glass and gives me a chin nod, making sure I know that he very definitely sees me.
“Earth to Mackenzie!” Ally waves a hand in front of my face and my eyes snap back to hers.
“Uh. What?” I say, trying to remember where we’d been in the conversation.
Her eyes track where mine had just been, and she must see him there because when she turns back, her mouth is set in a hard line.
“I asked if you want to come back to my place after this. You can hear the new track we recorded.”
“Oh. Um. I don’t know, maybe. I really can’t stay out too late. I have class first thing.”
I’m trying to stay focused on my current companions, but my eyes keep getting drawn back to Waylon. And I hate it. I hate that I care what he thinks, that I want to know what he’s thinking right now. That I want to explain the situation. It’s a thing I’d never have given a second thought to back when Ezra and I were together. Yet another element of my pride Ezra casually kicked in the mud when he threw me over for the redhead.
“It’s a good one. I wrote most of it, and Billy makes the lyrics sound fanfuckingtastic,” Ezra adds in.
“Yeah, well, he’s always been able to do that,” I tilt my head in admission. They’re all good, but their singer’s voice is probably more than half the reason for their success. He sounds like something out of your dreams. He has a deep voice that sounds like it’s been seasoned from years of smoking cigarettes, and when he belts out the lyrics to one of the songs, it’s hard not to imagine sex.
A little frown twitches across Ezra’s lips because I’ve admitted as much to him before. Not that I’d touch Billy with a ten-foot pole. The man puts any player on the football team to shame when it comes to the number of women who cross his bed. That is if they ever make it to a bed because I’ve seen Billy pants down, ass out, in more than one out-of-bedroom experience. The man has zero shame.
“You should hear it.” The emphasis Ezra puts on the “you” makes me think I might be part of the inspiration for this song. It’s a tactic he’s used in the past to smooth things over between us, but those were always little divides. A spat over this or that. Not the current and ever-growing canyon engulfing the space between us now. I’m almost curious what he could have written that makes him think he could bridge it.
“Maybe,” I shrug noncommittally. I need a break from his unnerving gaze.
“It’s taking forever for the server to come back. Want to go to the bar for another one?” I ask Ally.
Her brow furrows momentarily, but she nods, and we both escape the booth to head toward the main bar.
We put our orders in almost immediately and discuss some more of what’s going on in her life while we wait. But my eyes drift again while she talks, around the bar searching for something. Someone. I tell myself I’m not looking for Waylon. I’m not curious about what he’s doing, but when they finally land on him and I see a familiar brunette leaning on his shoulder and laughing with him, the brief twinge I feel in my chest tells me I’m a lying bitch.
I look away immediately, pretending to listen to Ally while my thoughts continue to get dragged back to Waylon. The way he’d kissed me the other night. The way we’d spent today together. Wondering why he hadn’t kissed me when he dropped me off. I feel sick. Somehow, I’ve gotten myself into a place where I’m wedged between a guy I thought I’d left behind trying to pull me back down into old habits and a guy I don’t know how to feel about but want anyway. Not that it matters, since I can’t have him. The whole situation is a mess.
Sure, there was the kiss, and how things had been today, almost like we were dating. But Waylon had pretty soundly rejected my proposition, and as far as I was concerned, the ball was in his court. He had made zero attempts to move it toward anything besides a tentative friendship and a very fake relationship.
My phone chooses that moment to buzz, and I look down to see a message.
Captain:Date not going so well?
Me:?
Captain:You seem distracted.
