“Did your talk with Gabriel go okay?” she asks.
“Yep.”
Her brow furrows slightly and I know it’s because of my clipped answer. I’ve never spoken to her so curtly before.
“Did something happen?”
The nervousness in her voice makes guilt claw violently in my chest.
“No, Kairi.”
“Then why are you acting like this?” she asks. “Is it because I said I wanted to know more about you?”
The exhausted sigh that leaves me makes her visibly flinch, and I hate myself for it.
“No,” I mutter again.
She hesitates before her eyes drop toward the ice pack on my bed.
“Did Gabriel tell you what he saw happen between me and Zale in the kitchen?” she asks in a quieter voice.
I finally look up. “What are you talking about?”
She swallows hard. “I couldn’t reach the ice pack, so Zale grabbed it for me.”
“And?”
“And…” Her fingers twist together nervously. “He said it’s a shame you and I are together instead of me and him.”
Hot anger burns its way through my chest, possessive and ugly.
“We’re fake dating though,” she rushes to add. “So technically what he said isn’t that bad.”
“Does Zale know we’re fake dating?”
She’s quiet for a moment before she shakes her head. “Well…no.”
“Then like I’ve said before, Kairi, itisthat bad.”
I stand abruptly, grabbing the ice pack and heading for the door to get some distance from this house before I do something stupid again, but her hand wraps around my wrist before I can reach the hallway.
“Where are you going?”
I gently pull free from her grip. “I need some space.”
She winces. “From me?”
I look away because seeing the hurt in her eyes feels unbearable.
“No,” I say quietly. “From this house.”
NINETEEN
KAIRI
“He left?”Eliana gasps. “Just like that?”
I nod and take another sip of my mojito, the bass from the music at The Kooky Coconut vibrating through the booth beneath us. Neon lights flash across the crowded bar, shifting shades of pink and blue all over the place while two servers weave through packed tables balancing trays of drinks.
