Nothing Feels Better (Better Love 3)

21

“You’re an asshole,” Bailey’s voice grates from the phone screen, her face furious. I recognize the background. She’s at Riggs’s place. Well, now her place too, I guess.

“Good morning to you, sunshine,” I grumble. I pull my phone farther away from my face to check the time. “Bailey, why the hell are you video calling me so early on a fucking Saturday?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you out late last night?” she asks sweetly, and her innocent smile causes me to sit up straight. I don’t trust sweet Bailey. Either she’s been body snatched and is now a pod person, or I’m about to get my ass reamed.

“What do you need?” I raise a brow and her smile falls into a scowl.

“How is it that one week ago you FaceTimed Riggs drunk and crying about how much you miss Jocelyn, and then last night you’re out yuckin’ it up with some rando in a yellow dress?”

“Uhhhh,” I mumble. “She’s not some rando. That’s Anjali. And since when do you say yuckin?”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, the point is that Riggs is a dick and was gossiping about my vulnerable moment.”

“He did not gossip. I was literally sitting right next to him the entire time you blubbered on FaceTime.” Her eyeroll is epic. Like, lose your eyes in the back of your head epic. “It’s not my fault you’re incapable of seeing anyone else when my boyfriend is around.”

“It’s the man bun,” I say absently, and she shrieks.

“Jesse!”

“Bailey! Stop being such an Aries.”

“I’m not an Aries, you weirdo.”

“It’s your moon sign, and you’re projecting.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I just do,” I say with a grin.

She growls at me. “This has nothing to do with Zodiac signs.”

“Be a lot cooler if it did.” I shrug and bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“JESSE,” she shrieks again. “Stop trying to piss me off!”

“Sorry. It’s the Sagittarius in me.” I wink, which just pisses her off more. She drags a hand down her face in frustration.

“Just please focus,” she says with a sigh. She’s relentless. There’s no distracting her when she’s like this.

“Okay, sorry. What should I be focusing on?”

“On Jocelyn,” she whines, and I huff.

“Yeah, no. Wrong. I’ve spent too much time focusing on Jocelyn. I need to focus on what’s here in front of me in Boston.”

“You are literally the dumbest genius I have ever met.”

“Pfftt. Like you’ve met any other geniuses.”

“Are you still in love with her?” she asks, and I sigh.

“Yeah, I am. You know I am.”

“Well, she’s in love with you,” she states, and I throw myself back down on my bed with a groan.

“She’s not, B. She told me so herself.”

“She is, and you’re a twat for just giving up so damn easily.”

“Did you just call me a twat?” I laugh.

“The twatiest of twats.” She shakes her head. “And if I were there, I’d totally smack you upside the head.”

“Aw, B, you know you’re not fast enough for that.”

“Jesse, I’m serious. You just took off at the first minor hiccup.”

“I didn’t just take off, Bailey. I went to med school, which Joss told me to do. And I would hardly call my former abuser and her psycho ex teaming up to blackmail her a ‘minor hiccup.’”

“Jesse,” she groans, giving me pause.

“What is with you, Bailey? You used to be firmly Team Yeet or Get Yeeted. Now you’re a simp.”

“Ha. I am not a simp. If anyone is the simp in this relationship, it’s Riggs.”

I laugh just as Riggs’ face pops into the screen, and he flashes me a smile.

“Proud simp, right here,” he says, and then disappears, but not before I notice that he is wearing an apron covered in flour.

“What’s he doing?”