Page 93 of Filthy Beautiful
I hadn’t bothered with one of those for a while. A long while.
Dylan seemed pretty fucking happy with his, though.
Yeah. Great plan.
Or maybe it would’ve been, if I’d actually followed through with it.
* * *
The panic trip to Portugal didn’t help.
Getting away from Courteney… removing myself from the fucking continent?
Didn’t. Help.
Being that far away from her, where I couldn’t steal glimpses of her in the backyard or through her bedroom window… totally didn’t help.
By the time I landed back in Vancouver, I was more fucked-up over her than ever.
I just couldn’t get that kiss out of my head.
I like you.
Yeah, I wasfucked.
Less than twenty-four hours back in town, and I was losing the argument with myself. I would’ve maybe held onto the belief that she was fucking with me when she said she liked me. But if that was true, I couldn’t see why she’d tell me that other thing.
I’m a virgin.
I believed her.
I didn’t at first. Was too shocked to believe it.
But she was serious. And she didn’t look happy about it, or about the fact that I was walking away.
But I had to walk away.
Unfortunately, I was totally fucking disinterested in hooking up with anyone else the way I’d told myself to. Which meant I was also incredibly fucking horny, which wasn’t helping, either. I just kept hanging around Cary’s house to try to be near her. To try to run into her, even though I was supposed to be avoiding her.
I knew she was probably still a little drunk when she’d kissed me. She’d also made it pretty clear, on more than one occasion, that she hated me. Maybe even more than she liked me?
Which just made it extra twisted. That maybe she knew sheshouldn’twant me…?
And that only made it hotter.
Yup. There was something deeply wrong with me.
I’d been hanging in the backyard, but I hadn’t seen her around all fucking day. I was trying to convince myself to take off, to go out and get my mind on something else… when I wandered through the house, for no reason at all, and somehow fell into a conversation with her.
I really didn’t trust myself to do that, but there I was, with her. In Cary’s kitchen.
She was cooking something that smelled fucking terrible when I walked in, and she was listening to Bieber again. I really had to saysomething.
“What are you cooking? Or are you exorcising a demon…? Have we got a poltergeist I should know about?”
She glared at me over her shoulder as she stirred whatever was in the giant pot. “It’s soup.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
