I nearly jumped into her lap from where I sat on the couch. “Don’t you dare!”
“Welp. Too late. Geez, Cay. He’s gorgeous!”
“Don’t…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Because, in all honestly, I was interested, too. I hadn’t had the nerve to Google him. I wasn’t sure what I’d find, but now I was incredibly curious.
It wasn’t me doing the research, so I could tell myself that it was okay. Having Blake do the cyber-stalking, and then tell me what she found, wasn’t in the realm of creepy, right? Her all-knowing gaze locked on mine before she leaned toward me without uttering a word.
“Don’t look so smug. Remember, you just got your life back together. Not all of us are that lucky yet.” I frowned.
“Wow. Bitterness looks good on you. But don’t worry. I’m here for you, even if you end up old and alone with sixteen cats.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled as we hovered over her phone.
She scrolled through his social media page. There wasn’t much there that didn’t pertain to the band. Damien kept most of it professional.
I let out a breath of relief as I sat up straight. There weren’tany pictures of him with half-naked girls in strip clubs, or doing body shots off bartenders like I had honestly expected. When you looked as good as he did, I was positive women threw themselves at him constantly. In fact, I’d even seen it in person at their shows. So, finding nothing scandalous about him made me feel better about deepening our friendship.
“Ooo. What’s this?”
My head whipped toward her. “What?”
“I’m so proud of you, Damien. You’ll have my heart forever. Love you always,” Blake read aloud. “It’s a photo of Damien with a girl, and the way they are clinging to each other, it’s obvious he is into her.”
“When was it?” My stomach twisted, threatening to discharge the bits of muffin I had eaten moments before.
“Two years ago, it looks like. The account that posted the photo belongs to someone named Vanessa Nicole. Her entire profile is private. I can’t see anything besides that. We would have never seen it if she hadn’t tagged Damien.”
I leaned forward, propping my elbows on my knees as I buried my face in my hands. This whole thing was becoming too much to bear. My emotions were all over the place. A chaotic storm brewed inside me and in the back of my mind, I recognized why.
The reality that I had learned almost nothing about his past and that he had been with someone seriously made me want to cry out in anger and throw up at the same time. Jealousy was not a pretty companion.
Somewhere along our friendship, my perception of our relationship had changed, and I expected him to stay single and not entertain other women while he had me in his life. And yet, I was in a serious relationship. It was completely irrational and hypocritical, but I couldn’t deny that’s what I felt.
What kind of person thinks like that?
I was the worst sort of human.
To have my cake and eat it, too…
But…
What if I didn’t want my usual cake anymore? What if I wanted a new flavor of cake?
And what if what was actually going on, was that I was figuring out that Elijah and I were no longer compatible? That the future that I once wanted no longer existed.
Fuck me.
“Cadence?”
I looked up into Blake’s sympathetic gaze.
“You’ve got a crush on him, don’t you?”
I groaned before pressing the heel of my hands into my eyes.
Because she was right.
Chapter Fifteen
