She’s with… Miles.
What the fuck?
He has his arm around her and they look way too cozy together, even though she only comes up to his shoulder. His head is bent towards hers and his fluffy blonde hair falling in his face. He’s whispering in her ear, and she’s grinning and giggling.
Again. What. The. Fuck?
This can’t be a coincidence. What are the chances that Miles just happened to stumble across Blaire after he and I broke up? Does she realize who he is? She has to, right? Something about this is shady as fuck, and I’m not the type to slink away and hide from a confrontation, so I hurry across the street to cut them off.
“Hey!” I snap, coming to a stop in front of them. “What the hell is this?”
They freeze, both looking startled to see me for a moment. Miles looks nervous but is obviously trying to hide it. He plasters on a too-wide smile and puts on a surprised act..
“Oh, Rylee, good to see you again!” He chuckles, the sound strained. “Me and Blaire, we are… um… ”
I roll my eyes. “Even if you’ve never presonally met each other before, you fucking knew we work together, Miles. Why are you two together? How?”
Blaire scowls. “We met on Cloak, not that it’s any of your business. What are you doing here, anyway? Haven’t you been fired yet?”
Her question catches me off guard, and then my hackles rise.
“What does that mean?” I demand to know in a low, cutting tone.
Blaire flips her hair and looks disgustingly smug. “After your disaster of an article, I figured Juliet would kick your ass to the curb faster than you can say dumpster fire.”
I stare at her, stunned. She’s acting completely unlike the friend I’ve had all these years. All of her professional insecurities are manifesting in this mean girl behavior that feels so forced, yet is coming from this terribly genuine place. Why? What happened?
Slowly, realization dawns on me.The article.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I gasp.
“What are you talking about?” she scoffs.
“You’re the one who messed up my article,” I hiss, rage bubbling up inside me. “You’re the one who swapped it for my journal entry!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Blaire insists. “You’re being paranoid, Rylee. I’m sorry the article didn’t turn out the way you hoped it would, but you know the editing process can get messy… ”
“Cut the shit, Blaire,” I snap. “There’s no way that piece should’ve even made it to editing. It’s not the one I sent to Juliet. Someone else had to interfere, and given that you’re hanging out withMiles, I can’t help but suspect that you had a hand in this. So spill! What did you do?”
For a moment, she looks like she might try to deny it again, but then she lets out a long groan “Okay, fine, yes!” she replies. “I convinced IT to give me your password and I found the journal entry. I edited it and cleaned it up then submitted it to Juliet using your email, saying it was a rewrite you forgot to include. After that, I deleted the email so you wouldn’t see it in your sent folder.”
It feels as if the ground is crumbling from beneath my feet.
“Why?” I shake my head. “Why would you do that? I thought we were friends.”
She at least has the decency to look guilty. “You might have thought we were friends,” she growls. “But what did you expect? You joined ICON and Juliet just started giving you all the best assignments. All the exclusives with the most well-known athletes, and all I got was scraps. The Night Hawks article was just the last straw for me. Then I met Miles and he promised to give me exclusives with his clients if I could kind of, you know… push you out. At first I wasn’t sure, but after I heard his side of your breakup, I realized how full of yourself you really are?—”
I jerk my gaze to Miles and back to her. “His side of the break up?” Back to Miles. “What the fuck are you talking about? You cheated on me!”
He glares at me and hisses, “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d put out more.”
"I would put out more if you knew how to please a girl and not just yourself, you selfish prick!” I snap.
"Yea well, when you dumped me I needed a new in with ICON, so I made sure Blaire found me… or, should I say I found her?”
“Miles!” Blaire gasps, eyes widening. “Are you serious right now?”
We both glare at him until he crumbles like the little bitch he is.
