“If you had asked me, I would like to think I would have been straight with you.”
“IfI’d asked you?” Ash’s eyes were wide. “On what fucking planet would I even think that this was a thing?”
I shrugged. This was pointless. “This solves nothing. Changes nothing.”
“What if it helpsmeunderstand?” he challenged me, and I tilted my head back to look at the ceiling briefly.
“Okay, you’re right. Ask me.”
“When did you have sex with her?”
“After you broke up.”
“How long after we broke up? The next day, the next week, the next month? When?”
“The same day.” I saw his reaction, and I braced myself for his rage.
“Are you shitting me? The same day? The samefuckingday?”
I nodded. I wasn’t ashamed. Okay, I felt guilty, but I wasn’t ashamed, and more importantly, I didn’t regret it.
“When?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes! I think it fucking matters, don’t you?”
“No. You broke up. I had sex with her. Then I had sex with her again, and then I spent the night with her, then she was pregnant, she miscarried our baby, and now here we are. Nothing for you has changed, Ash.”
“You’re un-fucking-believable.”
“Why, cousin?” My own temper was building. “Tell me why. Because once she and you were over, she never looked back? She never tried for a second chance with you, she didn’t regret breaking up, and what you’re failing to recognize in your outrage is neither did you. Quinn walked away from you that day, and you were fucking Carlie that night.” I shook my head. “Why is that any different?”
“Because Carlie isn’t my fucking cousin.”
I gave a half-shrug. “The point is neither of you were cut up about it. You tried it, it wasn’t meant to be. You have remained friends. It’s more than most people get.”
“Remainedfriends?” Ash’s eyes were wide. “Have you been paying attention for the last year and a bit?”
“Yes, and I see a guy who’s wounded because his ex didn’t sob into her cornflakes or try to get him back. Your pride was hurt. You then made sure her feelings were hurt by making sure every single one of your hookups told her that they’d been with you, and you made fucking sure you let them know how they compared to the Queen of Cardinal Saints High School. They rubbed it in her face, and you did that for a reaction, only she never gave you one. All you did, and all she did, was make eighteen months very fucking awkward for everyone else.”
“You’re a massive dick,” Ash said as he shook his head at me. “A really fucking massive dick.”
He barged past me and out her front door, and I looked to the bathroom door where Jett was standing.
“So, it could have gone better,” I hedged.
“Why do you have to be so relentlessly brutal?” he asked me as he came into the room more.
“He needed to hear it.”
“And you’ve been dying to tell him since they split up.”
“No, I’m not a dick. But he did need to be reminded that neither of them was fighting to get back together.”
“Gray, I . . .”
“I know,” I said as I gestured to the front door. “Go. Fuck shit up with him. When he calms down, tell him what I said was true.”
