What the fuck.
But one thing that definitelydoesn’tfeel romantic is the sudden, nauseating memory of Josh. What kind of a friend am I that I keep forgetting about him? What kind of a drug is Quill that I forgeteverythingwhen he’s touching me?
“What about my… my friend?” I ask, searching for the word to describe whatever sleuthing partnership Josh and I had formed.
He scowls. “Since when do you have a friend?”
I seethe at his words. “I’ll have you know I have alotof friends in college, and—”
I interrupt myself as he snorts, and I realize that if he knows about the ten guys I went out on dates with, and the birth control I’m currently taking, then he must know about them too.
“You have two,” he corrects me.
“Well, they’re very good friends, so that makes up for—”
Another snort, and I swear I want to punch him, but I remember how he reacted when I once gave him the tiniest half-smack on the shoulder.
“Two friends who don’t even know your last name.”
I ball my hands into fists in my lap, but for once, I can’t think of a thing to say.
“That’s alright, cricket,” he murmurs in my ear, and I shiverwith longing at the old nickname. “I don’t have friends either.”
“You have Liam and Dane,” I snap, practically spitting out the words in distaste.
“Right.”
His head is in my hair, as if he’s breathing me in, and his arms around me have softened. I know that any movement I make will have him tensing them around me again, and I don’t mind. I don’t want him to let me go easily. I can’t tell if I want to sink into his chest or struggle again just to feel his iron hold around me.
“About your…friend,” he says, pronouncing the last word in distaste, and I blink in confusion before remembering.
Josh. Right. What the fuck is wrong with me for forgetting again?
“I’m not aware that he’s dead. If he is, I had nothing to do with it.”
I roll my eyes a third time in his shirt. What a roundabout way of telling me he didn’t kill him.
“When I saw him running away from you, I realized he doesn’t give a shit about you, so I let him live.”
“Hedoesgive a shit about me!” I blurt out defensively. “He can’t choose his fight-or-flight response! You know, Quill,” I add, blowing out my chest as I recite from my Psychology 101 textbook, “we all respond to danger differently. Fight, flight, or freeze. My response is to freeze. Yours is obviously to fight. And I guess Josh’s is to flee.”
“He sure was fleeing, alright,” mocks Quill, his voice half-muffled by my hair.
“It’s not his fault,” I insist. “It’s a natural, automatic response to danger or stress, and—”
“Has anyone ever told you, cricket, how annoying you are?” he cuts in.
I gulp back on the surge of angry bitterness in my chest. “Yes.Youhave. Many, many times.”
A long silence follows my words, and I wonder if I’ve annoyed him yet again. I fight the urge to apologize, trying to remind myself, again and again, thathe’sthe one to blame.
I haven’t done anything but exist, have I?
But apparently, existing in Astley when your name is Piper Day is already plenty.
Against all expectations, though, he’s the one who apologizes.
“I’m sorry, cricket.”
