She shook her head. “I’m not giving it back, so I can’t really borrow it. If the cookies come out tasting better than hockey pucks, I’ll give you one.”
I raised a brow. “Just one?”
“I have plans for my cookies, Adam.”
A hand on my back startled me so much, I jumped. Then Kate ducked under my arm so she was beside me. More than beside me, she snaked her arm around me, tucking her fingers in the waist of my sweatpants.
I looked down at her, wondering what the hell she was doing. Staking her claim like she had one? There was no need in this case, but I wasn’t sure why she felt the need in the first place.
“My neighbor’s here to borrow sugar. I’ll be a minute,” I told her flatly.
Baddie backed up from the door, moving toward her apartment. “I didn’t mean to bother you. God, I’m sorry. I’m sure I can scrounge up sugar somewhere in my place.”
“Wait, no—”
She closed her door before I could stop her. Kate tugged me back inside my apartment, turning my lock with a resounding click.
I rubbed my face, then looked at my non-girlfriend who was behaving a hell of a lot like a real, live, jealous girlfriend.
“No one borrows sugar.” Kate marched to the living room and spun around, her arms crossed. “Are you fucking that…that teenager?”
“Are you kidding me right now, Kate?”
We didn’t have scenes like this. Kate was chill. She knew what we were. I’d made it clear I wouldn’t stray, and if I felt the urge, I’d let her know and we’d end on friendly terms. And the same went for her.
“That wasn’t a no.” She shoved her fingers through her hair, which was still tangled from my goddamn bed. “Of course you are. She looks like a fucking model and she’s so obviously into you, it’s painful.”
I was getting pissed. No, I alreadywaspissed. Yeah, Baddie was tall, lithe, and stunningly gorgeous. That much was obvious to anyone with eyeballs. Did that mean I wanted to sink my dick into her? No, and fuck Kate for implying I was ruled by my cock instead of my brain. Like I was some mindless fuck machine who couldn’t keep it in my pants around beauty.
When I tried to be good, to be loyal and faithful, I still ended up right back here.
“Of course I am?” I shook my head. “No. You don’t have any reason to say something like that to me—and you know it.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t know if I know it, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever we’ve had has been fading, and I think it’s time to call it. We had fun, but we want different things. Let’s be done before we hate each other.”
I’d been thinking the same thing. We had been coming to the end of our road together. I wasn’t her boyfriend, she wasn’t my girl, so untangling ourselves was as easy as saying the words and walking away. But damn, why did this feel like I was being dumped?
A-fucking-gain.
Kate grabbed her shit and made a hasty exit, kissing my cheek like she was doing me a favor. Then she was gone, out of my life. I might see her working backstage, I might not, but I knew from experience she wouldn’t be back.
The music had died in my head. My choices were to wallow—even though I was more frustrated than sad—or get my ass out of this apartment. Since the effort of getting dressed and finding someone to hang with sounded like more than I wanted to deal with, I grabbed the sugar from my pantry and knocked on my neighbor’s door.
Baddie threw a rock-hard cookie at my head from across her living room. “You can’t come into my apartment, sprawl out on my couch, and disrespect my cookies.”
I threw the cookie back to her, which she dodged by ducking behind her dining table. “They’re terrible. If you feed these to your dad, he’ll disown you.”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I know. I’ll have to pick up a box of éclairs on my way over tomorrow and pretend I made them.”
“I bet he’ll buy it.”
She crossed the room and perched on the arm of her couch. “Your girlfriend didn’t seem very happy I stopped by.”
“Not my girlfriend. She’s gone now anyway. She won’t be back.”
“No?” Her brows furrowed. “You don’t seem torn up about it. Not that it’s any of my business, but what happened?”
“Same old story, at least for me. We meet. We like. We start to bloom. We fade.”