CHAPTER TWELVE
Two Days Later
Lo
Iset my bag down on the shop counter, wondering where everyone is. The shop door is open, but the parlor is empty. It’s not like Gabe to leave it unlocked after hours. Laughter from the patio filters into the studio and I make my way to the back, eager to see my best friend and finally talk out all of the awkwardness of our trip away.
After the disastrous events of my lap dance, we’d traveled back to the hotel in silence, and he’d excused himself to make another call the second we were back in the hotel room. The trip back to LA was even worse, and neither one of us were really ready to face whatever the hell had happened.
So, we did what all best friends do when things get awkward, we swept it under the rug.
Now, I round the last tattoo station with a nervous smile on my face. A smile that instantly falters when Annie’s shrill laughter echoes around the courtyard. Her hand is on Gabe’s thigh, her body leaning into his. Bile rises in the back of my throat.What the fuck is she doing here? Why isn’t he pushing her away?
“Guess the wedding’s off, huh?” Mace whispers from behind me, and I tear my eyes away from Gabe and Annie to glare at him.
“What wedding?” I shake my head. Sweat beads between my breasts, and my stomach roils, but my heart is the bigger issue here, because seeing them together, watching her fawn all over the guy I love and not having him push her away has broken my heart in two. “What are you talking about?”
Mace grabs my shoulders and turns me so I’m facing the patio, then he points at the happy couple as he leans in and whispers. “That. Little hard to marry your best friend when he’s fucking someone else.”
Rage and hurt billow like a storm cloud inside me, churning and ripping up all of my careful composure.Careful. Fitting, since that’s what I always am around Gabe. Careful never to show too much, say too much. Careful never to let him see how I feel about him, but if I go out there now, I risk ruining all of that with a single look. In fact, I’m pretty sure I already ruined that in a strip club in Vegas. “I-I shouldn’t have come by. I’m not feeling well.”
“It’s never going to happen for you two,” Mace says, but his voice isn’t cutting like before.No. There’s an undercurrent of pity, and maybe even a little sadness.
“It isn’t like that with us,” I protest.
“Maybe not for him. But I see right through you, darlin’.”
“Fuck you, Mace.” I push past him into the studio.
“Maybe you should.”
His words stop me dead in my tracks and I spin around to face him. “What?”
He takes a step forward, but I take one back because behind him, Gabe is stepping over the threshold, remorse in his gaze, and I have no intention of sticking around to find out what the hell he has to say. What could he possibly say to make this okay? He almost kissed me in Vegas. He said things he can’t take back, and still here he is, together again with another woman, a woman who hates me. He chose her over me, despite everything we’ve been through, despite everything she put him through.
I spin on my heel and make a beeline for the door.
“Lo,” Gabe calls.
“Let her go, man.”
“Fuck off, Mace.”
“God, you don’t even get it, do you? You just broke her fuckin’ heart.”
I don’t hear Gabe’s response because I’m already out of the shop and on the street. The chill sea breeze whips my hair around my face as I head up Horizon Avenue toward home.
“Lo,” Gabe calls. I ignore him and walk faster, but that’s the problem with being five feet when your best friend is halfway to seven. He catches up with me in a matter of seconds and jerks me back toward him. “Hey. Why won’t you talk to me?”
“Oh, like you talk to me? I went to Vegas with you. I dropped everything for you. I knew I might be at risk of losing my job, but I did it anyway because I didn’t want to let you down.” I don’t bother telling him that I did lose my job for going away, because I’m not a manipulative bitch like that.I’m not Annie. “I wanted to take that trip with you, and you couldn’t once talk to me about this.” I point down the street, toward the shop,toward her, my hands trembling with rage.
“What are you talking about?”
“Annie, Gabe. I’m talking about Annie.”
“Look. I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He shakes his head and rakes his long fingers through his hair. “It’s not what it looks like.”
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to hear his excuses, and I don’t care how they got together. I want to know why. I want to know how he could be with someone who hates me. But I can’t talk to him about this. I can’t tell him how I feel.Especially not now.