Suddenly, the excited expression dropped from her face. “How are you going to tell Melissa? I don’t know how she’s going to take it, knowing that her best friend and her dad are getting it on in every corner of his house.”
I sank down in my seat and groaned. “I don’t know how to tell her. Do you think she’s going to be angry with me?” I asked.
“To be honest, I would be angry if it were my dad. But … Melissa has been in a better mood than usual lately. If you tell her soon, maybe she won’t be as mad?” Serena shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. That’s a difficult decision.”
Well, I had known it would be, but hearing it from Serena made it seem a hundred times worse than it was. “I … if she decides to end our friendship after all these years, will you stay by my side?” I asked. It felt weird, asking Serena, but … I didn’t want to be alone in this. I needed someone to talk to now that Mason was out of the picture.
Serena rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t even ask me that! You know I will.” She paused. “But … there’s something I have to tell you.” Her smile turned into a frown. “I don’t want to stress you out even more, but …”
My heart dropped, as I thought about what she could say that would hurt me. It seemed this past month had already been absolute hell. I didn’t know if I could take more.
“Mason is telling everyone that you’re a whore,” she said. “Everyone at the frat last night knows that you were being fucked by someone when you broke up with him.” She wrapped her arms around me and brought me into a hug. “And you know that everyone is going to believe him.”
While part of me hurt, I was starting not to give a single fuck about him anymore. I didn’t care what a bunch of no-good, sleazy frat boys thought of me. They were immature assholes who cheated on their girlfriends all the damn time. I didn’t need the extra drama in my life right now or at all.
Serena’s gaze shifted from me to the elevator doors when they opened. She pulled away, and Michael walked out, one hand stuffed into his pocket, the other holding his coffee. He had a smug smirk on his face, and I wondered what had taken him so damn long to come up here. Maybe he had been talking to Melissa after I ratted on her last night … or maybe he had been talking to Mason.
Serena bumped her shoulder into mine and winked, walking toward the elevator to leave. “Have fun with Daddy Bryne.”
CHAPTER29
MIA
Istared down at my phone to read another text message from Mason, calling me a slut, and sighed. It had been only four days since I had broken up with him, but it felt like a damn lifetime. He hadn’t left me alone like I’d thought he would, and he hadn’t told me when I could come get my stuff.
But I knew one thing: I wasn’t about to go back to his place alone. I didn’t trust him.
The elevator doors opened, and I glanced up to see a smiling Michael walk through them with a brown paper bag that smelled like Italian grinders. He placed it down in front of me and went in for a kiss, but I moved my head away before he could.
“Not here,” I said, glancing down the hallway to make sure nobody had seen us and unwrapping my grinder to eat it.
I watched him frown and felt bad about it, but he didn’t complain. Instead, he sat down next to me and pulled out our dinner.
“I’m taking you out on a real date soon,” he said to me.
I raised a brow at him. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“You didn’t.” He smiled at me, his gray eyes lighting up with excitement.
My heart warmed, and I playfully rolled my eyes. “Only if Mom’s surgery goes well.”
“She’s having surgery?”
“Scheduled for the day after tomorrow.” I paused for a long moment and peered back down the hallway toward her room.
Since we had officially become athing, I hadn’t asked Michael to actually come into the room to see Mom with me. I didn’t want her to think that something was up with us because it’d make her worry more. But I wanted her to get more comfortable with him around.
“Do you want to see her?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he said.
I stuffed our half-eaten sandwiches back into the bag and nodded toward her room. My fingers brushed against his as we walked, tingles shooting up my arm. When Mom saw us through her window, she smiled and waved at us to come into the room.
Michael opened the door for me, and I inched my way inside, gladIwasn’t hooked up to a monitor because my heart rate was through the damn roof. Michael followed me in, his hand on my back.
And Mom saw. She definitely saw.
“Michael, how are you?” she asked, smiling weakly.
