She straightened and picked up her mug of coffee. “Everyone’s different, hon. Personally, I think it comes down to how it makes you feel when you look at the pictures. If they were genuine assholes, they’re gone. But if you consider them to have been a positive part of your life while they were in it, then they stay. They’re a part of your past, and I think it’s important to acknowledge the part they played.” She took a sip of her coffee while holding up one finger. “I do, however, have a strict rule to delete photos of exes off my cell phone. They can stay on my hard drive or social media, but not my phone. Except for Isaac. He’s staying. For now,” she said, one perfect eyebrow wiggling up and down.

Letting out a soft laugh, I shook my head. Her encounter with Isaac must have been a good one because she grinned every time she talked about it. So much so, I had to ask her if she wanted more from him. But she’d been very quick to cut that thought straight down. To Amber, Isaac was pure fun.

I considered her rules as I sat there, and whether they would work for me. At this point in time, I didn’t consider Wyatt to have been a terrible part of my life at all. Of course, that could change if I found out he had anything to do with drugging me. I thought her rules were pretty good, though. It would be a little extreme to delete every trace of our dating life off social media like it didn’t ever exist. Like she said, he’d been a part of making me into who I was in this very moment. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But I was also in agreement about the cell phone thing. My cell phone was my personal possession. To me, it was to carry things close to my heart. And if I was to scroll back through my pictures, I only wanted to see things that made me smile.

Closing Facebook down, I opened my pictures and started flagging the ones I wanted gone. To be honest, I didn’t have that many pictures of Wyatt on there. There were a couple of good ones of us posing at parties, but I knew they’d been uploaded to Facebook, so they could defi

nitely go.

Pausing at one that just looked like a black pocket photo, I prepared to flag it, but stopped myself when I realized it was a video. Deleting the ones I’d flagged, I opened the video to full screen and hit play. I frowned as it started, watching the blurry darkness and movement. I must have accidentally put it into video mode or something. I wondered when it was from. It couldn’t have been that long ago.

Holding it closer, I tried to see where I might’ve been. I could just make out the shape of my coffee table, so I must’ve been in the living room. I didn’t know why this amused me, but pocket calls and accidental videos always had. I liked to listen to see if I could catch anyone out doing something funny.

Turning up the volume, I frowned when I heard grunting accompanied by some kind of rhythmic slapping. What the hell was that? The camera flailed about, the picture growing lighter as part of the kitchen came into view. It was obvious it was an unintentional video, but surely I should have some recollection of when this was?

The camera wobbled, turning a fraction more, and my breath stopped. “What the fuck?”

The frame moved away again, but my heart was already in a sprint. That seriously could not have happened. With my eyes glued to the screen, I held my breath, my hand slightly shaking.

Amber moved beside me. “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t answer. My head was spinning, my gaze pinned, waiting in shock. And then it was there again, but this time it stayed in frame.

I heard Amber gasp. “Holy fucking shit!”

As the picture shook, shifting again before it came to an end, I slowly raised my gaze to Amber’s stunned one, my mouth dropped open in a perfect O. I struggled to comprehend what my eyes had just witnessed. My head was telling me it was impossible, but the proof was right there. Oh. My. God.

Wyatt and Zac. In my kitchen. Fucking.

Shock pierced my core. I’d never felt so deceived and used in all my life.

Amber shook her head. “Girlfriend, please tell me I did not just see what I think I saw.”

My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. How could this have happened? I didn’t understand. I had been with Wyatt for half of a year. We had a good sex life. Didn’t we?

Memories flashed inside my mind. All the times he’d chosen to just cuddle instead of engaging in sex. All the times he’d favored doggy or BJs over any other position. All the times he’d dropped me home at the end of the night and gone back to his own dorm.

My chest tightened. Oh my God. Had he been sleeping with Zac all that time? Was he gay? Or was he bi? Either way, he cheated on me. In my own freaking apartment.

As those thoughts sank in, I was hit with a deep sense of dread. I had no way to be sure, but I had no doubt that had to have been the night I was drugged.

“Oh my God, Amber,” I said, bile rising in my throat. The whole of my body was shaking. “I think I’m going to be sick. This can’t be happening. Did you know? Could you tell?”

I knew I was rambling, but I was seriously struggling to make sense of this. Amber squeezed my arm and shook her head. Her eyes were just as wide as mine. “I had no idea, hon. I’m in just as much shock as you are right now. I mean, you guys had sex, right?”

I nodded, dazed and stupefied. “Yeah, but he really wasn’t as interested in it as I was. Before we broke up, he started talking weird, telling me these fantasies he had of someone watching us—” My jaw dropped. “Oh my God, do you think that’s what that was? Like I was the one watching them?” I shook my head as I remembered him talking about another guy doing things to me. “Shit, I don’t know. I’m so confused right now. What the hell do I do with this, Amber?”

I watched her slump down on the counter beside me. “The first thing you need to do is to have a drink and let this shit sink in, then I think you should go confront Wyatt and ask him to fucking man up and be honest with you. You deserve that much at least, Jess. And maybe,” she said, sadness creeping into her eyes, “you should get yourself tested for STDs.”

Dropping my head back, I closed my eyes. I could not believe this was happening. Swallowing, I nodded. “They screened for STDs when they did the drug test. I’m good, thank God.” Pressing my fingers over my mouth, I shook my head, tears thickening my throat. “Was I just a decoy all this time, Ambs? Did I mean anything to him at all?”

Wrapping her arm around me, she hugged me tight. “Try not to think of it like that, hon. This is his issue, not yours. You did everything right. He was the one who fucked up. He’s the one with the shortfall.”

I laughed humorlessly. At least my gut had been right. I had felt like something had been missing from our relationship for so long. And now I knew what it was. I was missing a fucking cock.

Chapter 30