Plus, Simon had been an ass. Two things could be true.
The silence between us stretched on as I fumbled to unlock the door. I wished he’d just hightailed it the other way.
"Hey, listen." Simon's voice stalled before his throat cleared. "Have you spoken to Brian recently?"
I almost dropped my keys in shock. "Brian? How the hell do you know him?"
He watched me open my door with a shaky hand; his face pinched in hesitancy. "Long story," he finally responded, shrugging in apology. "I'll let him tell you that if you want to know."
I raised my brow at that reticent reply. He didn't need to know that the likelihood of Brian and I speaking again was minus zero.
"He may have gotten the wrong impression of me when I last saw him."
I crossed my arms, keeping my shoulder propped against the door. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"Fuck. So you haven't seen him." He raked his hand through his hair. "Me and my big mouth. Sofia keeps telling me that I gossip like an episode ofSex and The City,but I can't help it if sometimes –"
"Simon," I firmly cut in. This encounter was weird enough without his rambling. Plus, my Thai food was getting cold. Iheld my hand out for my food and book bag. "Tell me what happened."
"Right. Fuck." He handed me my take-out bag. "Smells good," he commented.
"Simon," I warned.
"Okay, okay. So Brian came to Eden's mom's engagement party the other night," he started.
"How did he –" I shook my head. Not the time for details. "Never mind."
"So, Mila Mills was there. She mentioned that you did her hair and make-up. Great job, by the way, I heard your business exploded."
"Simon." God, the more he talked, the more I realized how annoying he was. Thank god he’d been good in bed.
"Okay, so somehow it was brought up that you and I…you know." He rolled his hand, glancing at me to fill in the blanks. I glared back. He can wallow in his clumsiness.
His eyes dropped from mine. "Anyway, I told him that I was, you know, an ass to you, and he got…upset." His sentence came out in a mumbled rush that it took a while to penetrate my slacked mind.
"Upset?"
"Okay, he was pissed." He spread his hands in pleading emphasis, an apologetic flush spreading on his face.
My mind could only focus on one thing. A red-hot fury lanced through me.Hewas pissed? First Logan and now Simon. Was Brian really that much of a pig-headed sexist that he felt the need to shame me for my sexual past? I was well to be rid of him.
"Are you okay?" He eyed me warily as I breathed deeply through my rage.
"He was pissed?" I ground out. "At me?"
His head jerked back. "What? No! At me." He pointed at himself. "I didn't give him many details, but what I did reveal,he laid into me—defended your honor. Granted, he’d been drinking, so his emotions were a little raw," he muttered. "I can understand where he's coming from, though, because if some dickhead was an ass to Sofia, I would wring their neck so fast –"
I held my hand up before he could go off on another tangent. "Brian was pissed off—atyou—for how you treatedme?" What the hell was going on? My jumbled head was still untangling that Brian knew my ex-hook-up, and now I was further confounded by Brian possibly defending me.
"I'm telling you, Maria, he was ready to throw hands. I honestly didn't know you two were dating."
I didn't bother correcting him on his assumption. It wasn't any of his business, although I was curious about how he came to this belief.
I nodded and moved away from my door to close it. "Okay, thank you for telling me. Have a good evening."
"Wait. Maria, wait."
I turned back to him, bracing myself for what else he had to reveal. I couldn't take any more bomb drops.
