My grin dies instantly.
I angle my head, pretending I’m deeply invested in the liquor selection, and listen.
“I fucking knew it,” he says, voice sharp and slurred with accusation. “This was your idea, wasn’t it? You dragged her here. You always did that shit—always stirring things up.”
He scoffs, “You were always the problem friend. You and that other girl. You two never fucking liked me. Never even tried to give us a real fucking chance.”
His lip curls, eyes hard with resentment. “Always sticking your nose in our relationship. Whispering in her ear. Filling her head with bullshit until she thought she was better than me.”
Mark.
Of course, it’s fucking Mark.
His voice hits like stepping on a fucking Lego you forgot to clean up—sharp, stupid, and instantly rage-inducing, especially when he’s using it to talk about her.
I flag the bartender with two fingers, already annoyed and needing something to do with my hands before I do something dumb.
“Beer,” I say. Short and flat in that,don’t fucking talk to metone.
He pops the cap and sets it down. I hook a finger under the edge of my mask, lift it just enough to get the bottle to my mouth, and take a long pull. Slow and controlled. Like if I drink carefully enough, my pulse might get the message and stop trying to break out of my fucking ribcage.
Breathe.
Count it down.
Don’t make this a scene.
Kade thinks first. I don’t. I’ve always been the one who swings and deals with the bill later. So yeah—I’m trying real fucking hard not to do that right now.
He’s standing too close to a woman I recognize immediately.
One of the girl’s Aeri was with earlier stands next to him, clearly uninterested. Sharp eyes. Tight posture. Shoulders squared like even she’s ready to knock his pathetic ass to the ground. The kind of girl who clocks exits and danger without making a show of it. The kind who doesn’t smile just to keep men comfortable, nah she's got a similar fire to Aeri’s. Make’s sense why they’re friends.
“She thinks she’s hot shit now,” he says, voice raised. “Running around half naked, grinding on strangers like she’s not even phased we just broke up. And to think she always wanted me to take her seriously.”
I take another slow sip. My jaw clenched so hard it fucking aches and then ease the mask back down covering my face. The bottle hits the bar with a soft tap—measured, and deliberate.
My fingers curl into the wood of the bar.
The girl doesn’t flinch or back down. She just stands there, looking at him like she’s already tired of his bullshit.
Shit, same.
“That’s wild,” she says coolly, “considering you spent the entire relationship with your dick in someone else’s inbox. Howmany girls did it take before you got bold enough to bring them back to her place and christen her couch, Mark?”
Oh shit.
I bite down hard to keep the laugh in.
Mark’s face darkens and his jaw tightens as he leans closer.
Too fucking close for my liking.
“You don’t know shit,” he snaps. “She’s nothing special. Not now, not even before she started pulling this attention-seeking bullshit. Any whore can dress like that and get looks.”
Whore?
The word lands wrong. Ugly and heavy. It’s the kind of word men like him use when they’ve run out of excuses and need something sharp to throw instead. Like calling her that somehow makes him bigger. Cleaner. Less of a fuck-up.
