Page 73 of Not So Happily Ever After (British Bad Boys)
“Why aren’t you with her, then?” I already know the answer—she’s spending the day with her mum—but it’s the only deflection I could think of.
He ignores my diversionary tactic. “Did I ever tell you what Harry said to me when I fucked things up with Violet?”
He didn’t, and I don’t want to know. “I don’t need second-hand dating advice from your brother.”
The smirk on Lucas’s face says it all. Bloodyidiot. I’ve just admitted he’s right.
You just admitted you were dating Mac.And not in the casual fake-dating way we discussed when we were in Wales, either.
It’s never been casual with her. Not even that Christmas night when I lost my mind and took her to bed. I was over my ex by then, and Mac’s always meant more to me than any other girl, even before we first slept together. Why didn’t I see that before it was too late?
“Your call,” Lucas says, sounding way too smug. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
After Jenna, I swore never to get involved with another girl. I couldn’t risk having my heart crushed again after having the person I trusted most in the world turn her back when I needed her. But whenever I thought of the future, Mac was always there.
I was serious, all right, and didn’t even realize.
And Lucas is the last person I can take advice from. A strangled groan escapes, and I slump forward, my head in my hands. I broke the bro code, big time, and this is karma’s payback.
“You’ve really got it bad, haven’t you?” He still appears to find the whole thing funny. “I’m gonna give you Harry’s advice for free.” He leans forward on the sofa, and I have a freaky, fatalistic conviction that whatever he says will straighten out this clusterfuck. Without the nuclear meltdown.
“The only way to get her back,” my best friend says, “is to grovel.”
I wait, sure there’s more, but he lounges back on the sofa and proceeds to finish his coffee.
Grovel?That’s the golden advice Harry gave Lucas? What a crock of steaming shit.
Mac doesn’t want anything more to do with me. And making a prat of myself in front of her won’t change that.
Better get used to it.
…
Mackenzie
My life is a total disaster.
I sit on the edge of my bed and survey the crap spread across the room. I’m supposed to be packing for Uni, but that’s turning into a disaster, as well. I don’t even know where to start.
The low-level dread pulsing in my chest like a malignant fog is something I’ve become used to before returning to Uni, but it’s so much worse this time.
I let out a shaky breath, and my listless glance rests on the photo of Mum I keep next to my bed. I pick it up and study her face, so like mine, but different.
I miss you so much.If she were still here, would I be able to tell her about Will? I used to tell her everything before I hit fifteen and turned into the biggest bitch ever.
It’s only midmorning, and Dad said he’d be back at lunchtime, before I leave for Oxford. Might as well stick to my original plan, since there’s no way I’ll be going in the morning with Will.
Don’t think about him.He was in my head all night—the reason I couldn’t get to sleep, and the tormentor of my fractured dreams when I did manage to drop off.
My fingers tighten around the photo frame, and before I can stop myself, I’m making my way downstairs to Mum’s old study.
With a deep breath, I push open the door, and my heart aches in that bittersweet, familiar way. Nothing much has changed in all the years she’s been gone except that Dad gave a few pieces of her antique Queen Anne furniture to Harry and Lucas when they turned twenty-one.
For my birthday last year, he gave me the choice of whatever I wanted from this room. But I couldn’t take anything. And not just because I don’t have my own home like my brothers do.
It’s because, deep in my heart, it feels like sacrilege. This was her room. It’sstillher room. I can’t even count how many times I’ve slipped in here over the years, when nobody knew, just so I’d feel closer to her.
I place the photo on her desk, and a pang grips my heart at how bare it looks without all her papers and journals. And then I curl up on my favorite chair, the one I always used to sit in while Mum worked late into the night.
