“I’ll be nearby the whole time,” he assured me. My heart skipped two beats because if Logan’s closest friend at MIT wasn’t willing to stray from my side while I went to look for him, then that didn’t bode well for what he thought I might see.
We walked into the party and my eyes immediately darted around the room in search of Logan. When I finally caught sight of him across the room, my heart burst with excitement and quickly stuttered to a stop momentarily as I noticed that Grace had her arms wrapped around his neck and he was smiling down at her. They were swaying back and forth together in a slow dance that didn’t match the fast-paced rhythm of the music pumping too-loudly through the speakers.
“Do you want to leave now?” Miles asked.
“No, I need to talk to him, no matter what.”
“Want me to go get her away from him for a minute?”
“Might be better if you get him away from her,” I started to say when that very thing happened. Logan’s name was called.Not that I could hear it, but his head snapped up and he pulled Grace’s hands down from where they rested on his shoulders, and walked toward whoever had gotten his attention.
I started to head that way and thought Miles was by my side, but when I was about to move from what appeared to be the living room into the kitchen and dining area, I was stopped when a hand punched forward into my shoulder. I glanced down to see red fingernails and a diamond bracelet winking at me. When I trailed the arm to the body that stepped in front of me, I wasn’t surprised to see it belonged to Grace. I glanced behind me but Miles wasn’t there.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” Grace demanded.
My eyebrows shot damn near to my hairline. “I came to surprise my best friend with a visit and found out he was at this party tonight.”
“You’re not wanted here. In case Logan’s lack of visits hadn’t clued you in, he doesn’t care about you anymore.”
“I’ll let Logan tell me that himself.”
“Listen, bitch!” She took a step closer so that the toes of our shoes touched and I could feel her hot breath in my face as she spoke. “Logan is mine now and I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“If he’s truly yours, then what do you have to be worried about if little ol’ me visits?”
“I know all about your little marriage pact and how you plan to seduce him into marrying you by using that‘poor me, save me’bullshit. It’s not going to work. Logan knows better now and besides, he’s in love with me. Didn’t that last phone call tell you anything? He will take my side, no matter what I tell him. I wonder what I should say this time.” Her eyes sparkled with evil intent as she cackled. “How about I tell Logan how you assaulted me because you saw us dancing together?”
“I did no such thing,” I argued just as the bitch threw herself to the floor in front of me. In the process, she knocked into some woman who lost the grip she had on her drink. It spilled all over Grace who simply grinned up at me.
“That’s just perfect,” she said as she struggled to get up.
To my sheer horror, Logan came back into the room to see me standing there and then his eyes tracked to Grace on the floor in front of me.
“What the fuck have you done?” he yelled. Much to my chagrin, though not a surprise at all, his anger was clearly directed at me.
Grace was right, he didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt or ask what had happened. He assumed the worst of me before she could even begin to poison him with her lies. I glanced right and left, but still didn’t see Miles and my heart sunk.
Had he abandoned me? Had he been in on Grace’s plan and put me right where she needed me to be to set this all into motion?
I stood there, too shocked to speak as Logan helped Grace to her feet. She spoke to him so quietly that I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I already knew. She’d told me her plan after all. Logan’s eyes narrowed and his fists clenched at his sides as he turned to me. Grace managed to produce some Oscar-worthy crocodile tears. I watched as my best friend pulled her tight into his side, not caring that she was soaked by that drink.
“It was bad enough that you had to be a complete bitch to Grace, and she finally told me about all the other times you were mean to her during your visits here, but this is going above and beyond, Aoife. I thought you were better than this! I didn’t think you’d ever be so fucking cruel to another person, but here you are, behaving just like your dad and his fucked-up goon squad. You know what? It’s good that he plans to marry you off to somemobster because that’s exactly the life you deserve. Go back to New York because you’re not wanted here, certainly not by me anymore.”
I knew in that moment that I’d never be able to piece the shards of my heart back together again. My best friend hadn’t even bothered to ask me what happened. He just took her word that I’d assaulted her and had apparently treated her badly on previous occasions, too. He never even asked me about her accusations before.
Suddenly, I was the bad guy plotting to ruin his friendship and it was so easy for him to believe the worst of me while accepting the lies she whispered in his ear. I had well and truly lost my best friend. Never mind that I’d also lost the only way out of the situation my father planned to force me into. Logan easily abandoned me to my fate without even asking me a single question.
I took a step back from him and then another as I lost the will to keep my tears at bay. A moment of regret slid across Logan’s features but then hardened again as Grace started to sob loudly. “I can’t believe you threw a drink in her face and pushed her down. I don’t know who the hell you are anymore and I don’t fucking care to figure you out now.” Logan turned his back on me and helped Grace into the other room without looking back.
The girl who had accidentally spilled her drink on Grace was by my side in an instant. “Oh my God! Are you okay? I can go tell him the truth.”
I shook my head so slowly, it might as well have been trying to move through molasses. “No. If he wants to believe her over a life-long friend, then I will let him.”
“But…” she tried and I shook my head harder.
“Thank you for caring enough to say something, but there’s no need. I need to find…” Before I could say his name, Miles wasthere with a hand on my elbow guiding me away from the girl who looked heartbroken for me.
“Sorry, I couldn’t get closer once the action started.” There was something false in what he said, but I didn’t care then.
