I threw Xander a look, which I hoped conveyed,That’s her. Be on your best fucking behavior.
Xander just smirked at me.
I turned away. He wanted me to prove I was trustworthy? Well, that shit went both ways. Maybe this was his first chance to prove that he deservedmytrust.
We’d just have to see how it played out.
I nudged into Danica, and although Doucheface was still talking, she glanced up and noticed I was behind her. She smiled and turned into me a bit. “Hey, you remember Carter? He just got here.” She gave me a nervous, unsure look, like she was trapped between two pit bulls who were about to sniff each other out.
“Hey,” I said, nodding a greeting at him.
“Good to see you again, man,” he said, pretty good-naturedly, if it wasn’t for the fucking bullets in his eyes—which he shot my way behind Danica’s back.
Then Taylor reached past me to bump Danica’s arm, and they leaned in over the bar to talk to each other.
I studied Carter.
Something about this guy’s vibe just wasn’t right with me.
He leaned over Danica and told me, “So, I was just telling Danica what a great time I had at dinner last night. Too bad you had to miss it.”
Then he drew back, just as Danica stood back up and handed us each a shot. “Your friend Xander bought them,” she told me with a big, beautiful smile.
I stared at her face, not really sure what I was seeing. It was sort of a blur.
When I looked at her ex again, he threw back his shot and smiled at me, the most douchebag smile, then took a leisurely slug of his beer.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ash
Iput back my shot, then placed the shot glass on the bar and stared at it.
Danica’s ex-boyfriend was at her birthday dinner last night. But she didn’t tell me about that.
And I wasn’t there.
Because she told me not to come.
I wouldn’t say I was angry about it, instantly. There was a weird sensation like the floor falling out from under me, but maybe it was just the bass vibrating through my feet and the sudden slam of adrenaline that made my stomach turn.
I said nothing.
But I knew the feeling of getting burned by someone I was stupid enough to care about.
I’d been burned by this shit before, way too many times.
I’d burned people, too.
Bad fucking karma…
I’d lied, been lied to.
Cheated on people, been cheated on.
Once bitten, twice shy, right?
Except that I’d been bitten so many times now, I’d lost count. Betrayed in so many ways, big and small, by so many people, there was a point when I’d stopped caring about it and just fucked around, because what did it matter?
