It was what Dominic had said.
Why does the thought of you kissing her make me fucking spiral?
I had no idea how to answer him…but I could put his mind at ease.
The question was, should I?
It was what I’d been debating since coming back upstairs. I’d typed out so many messages they could make up an essay.
What if I answered him and he threw it back in my face? What if this was all some elaborate set-up so he could find out how much of a fucking failure my first ever date was? A ruse to humiliate me further?
But then I thought of Dominic’s anguished face. The tremble in his voice as he pleaded with me to make it make sense.
This wasn’t a set-up. That much I was sure of. It was pretty much the only certainty I had about this whole situation.
Eventually, I stopped flipping the phone and settled for a simple sentence.
RYAN
I didn’t kiss her.
His response took longer than I expected. I chewed on my lip as I waited. Was Dominic as unsure about all of this as I was?
Finally, my phone beeped.
DOMINIC
I don’t care.
I ground my teeth together. Why the fuck was he lying when we were both there tonight? When webothknew how he’d reacted?
RYAN
Fine. If you don’t care then you won’t mind if I take her out again.
There was no response to that. I didn’t know what had come over Dominic earlier, but obviously he was over it now.
I powered down my phone in disgust. Fuck him. Just when I thought we were finally getting somewhere, he set us back by half a mile.
Whatever. I was done with him and the bullshit mind games he was playing.
As I lay down to sleep, I tried to think about Maya. About what it might’ve been like to close the distance between our lips, to feel her tongue against mine. Would she moan softly? Be gentle and pliant in my arms?
It was no use. None of those fantasies were doing anything for me. I punched my pillow in frustration, trying to get into a comfier position. If anything, it made it worse. Had Max actually filled it with rocks as a joke? Wouldn’t put it past him.
Then again, he’d been so obsessed with Amy recently that he hadn’t even looked twice at me.
It was a fucking relief.
When sleep finally did claim me, it wasn’t Maya or even Max on my mind.
It was Dominic.
The next morning,I found Max at the kitchen table, eating an enormous bowl of cereal. I bit back my sigh before going to the cupboard.
I was right. The box was there but completely empty.
A snarky quip was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back. I was so tired of arguing with Max. Maybe it was time to try a different tack.
