Page 148 of Forever Defiant
The stress ball rested beside him.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” I reminded him quietly. “I mean that, but I needed to remind you what you’re stepping back from.”
The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable. I don’t think it was supposed to be.
I sat on the edge of his bed. “It’s okay.” My words were sincere. “I thought about it too, but...”
“But he’s your friend, and you want to support him. Yeah. I know how you feel.” Noah rubbed his hand over his face. “What’s the picture? Can I see it?” He actually smiled, and I was grateful because I’d had enough heavy shit today, and I knew he wanted to change the subject.
I handed him my phone wordlessly. Noah snorted out a laugh.
“It’s not that funny.”
“Look at you, you look so desperate, man.” He tossed the phone back. “She sawthat,and her reaction was to say you were a couple?”
I nodded, looking at the image from another angle, not like ‘oh fuck, my life is screwed’ but actually looked at us both. Noah was right. I looked eager for Peterson to lean forward. We were in our own world, and it was actually really hot.
“Yeah. She said if it’s blackmail, then blackmail is about power, so she took the power back.” I licked my lips. “She made sense at the time, but now I have to go home on Sunday with my fake girlfriend to meet my parents.” I scowled when Noah snickered. “It’s not funny. I need to convince my mom I’m into her. Otherwise I’ll need to show mymomthat picture and explain why I’m faking it.”
Noah was laughing again. “You need to convince your mom you’re into Hadley? Or you need to convince yourself you’re not?”
I closed the image. “It’s just sex.”
“No one gets to see her like that ever?” he mocked. Noah sat at his desk and stretched his legs out. “I don’t think you need to fake it.”
“I don’t want to date Peterson.”
He scoffed. “Why not? She’s hot, funny, smart, and looks like she knows how to handle herself. Sounds like a catch to me.”
He was obviously insane. “She’s pushy, loud, stubborn, a crazy cat lady, and I’m still not one hundred percent sure she wasn’t behind this.” I tapped the phone for emphasis.
“Like a reverse Kathy Bates inMisery?”
“Oh fuck, if she comes at me with a sledgehammer, we need to run.”
“While we can,” he said, smile fading. “You really think it was Hadley?” He shook his head. “I can’t see it. She’s less... subtle but still brutal.”
I looked away. Yeah, the more I thought about it, the less likely I thought it was her too. “I’m looking for Briar,” I admitted to Noah. “I know I just told you to step back, but I ran into her about five minutes after I left Hadley that night.”
Noah waved off my concern about oversharing. “This is different,” he said softly. “The social media girl.” He whistled. “It’d be a pity if it were her.”
“You liked her,” I remembered with a knowing smile.
“I did. But then I saw her with some guy and realized she’s taken. And she’s not a student, I don’t know why I assumed she was.”
“Her height.” He looked at me. “She’s petite. It’s hard to place an age on her when she’s always hiding behind her hair.” I tapped my leg. “But when she was introduced, it was as a member of the marketing team, not as an intern or student shadowing or anything.”
Noah looked surprised. “How depressing would that be? Posting on social media every day?”
“It’s PR — just a different platform. Naya is obsessed with likes on her posts. I bet if it’s your paid job, you’re even more invested than an eighteen-year-old like my sister in how many views you’re getting. Hadley chasing me across the field must have been a nightmare for them.”
“Yeah. They’re going to want to know why you two didn’t declare your love for each other before now.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“Do you want to help me interrogate her?” I asked him only half jokingly.
“Of course. That’s what friends do.” He held up his phone. “Must be something in the water; Hadley said she and Savvy wanted to ask me something too. It’s why they came looking for me.”
