I push through the door of my room, more than ready to put this week to bed when I find a body sitting in my desk chair. Maze stares up at me and my face instantly falls. “Before you say anything, just hear me out,” she begs, holding her hands up. “I came to apologize properly, and well, despite how tough you think you are, you need a friend.”
“Okay, sure. Well, let me know if you find anyone who matches that description.”
“I can be a friend,” she tells me with a pout. “I fucked up so bad, but I miss you. What we had going was cool and I hate that I screwed it all up for a bit of dick. You know how chatty I get, especially when I’m nervous and when tequila is added to the mix, I couldn’t stop myself. You’d only just told me about your parents and it was heavy, you know. It was sitting on my mind for ages and then it all just splurted out at the wrong time.”
“You betrayed my trust,” I tell her, realizing that she’s right. I do need a friend. I’m freaking lonely here, but I’m not sure that she’s the one to fill that role. Apart from having Damian winking way too often and Blake being his usual self, I’ve got no one.
“I know I did and it makes me sick,” she says with big puppy-dog eyes. “Haven’t you hated me enough? Or maybe you could still hate me but let me make it up to you? I promise, I really do mean well by you.”
I look at the girl who caused me so much pain and question if I’ll ever be able to trust her again and quickly realize that the answer is no. I never will, I’ll never be able to share pieces of myself with her again. She’ll never be that tight friend I was hoping she’d be, but she could be something. She could take away the sting of the loneliness, at least until I find someone worthy of true friendship.
I swallow back, wondering if I’m going to regret this decision, but hope to God that this doesn’t come back to bite me on the ass.
“Fine,” I let out a groan, “but you’re on probation. One tiny little fuck up and you’re out.”
“Oh, thank God,” she says, visible relief taking over her features. “I was so sure you were going to make me squeeze back out the window or perform some ridiculous task as punishment.”
My brow raises in interest. I’m down for ridiculous tasks.
“You know,” she continues as though this is a two-way conversation. “When Slade and I…you know, the second you barged in and barged back out, he practically threw me aside. It’s almost as though he got what he came for and then was done. Neither of us even got close to finishing.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “Bullshit.”
“Yeah,” she scoffs. “Trust me, I was disappointed too. That boy has a reputation for all sorts of things but not finishing what he started wasn’t one of them. I had to go home and finish the job myself.”
I scrunch my face up. “I don’t want to hear about what you get up to when you’re all alone. You’re probably into some weird fetish.”
She grins wide. “I mean…”
“Stop. I don’t want to know.”
Maze shrugs her shoulder and gets up from the desk chair. “Your loss,” she chuckles, making her way across my room and rummaging through my clothes. “Oh, you’ve gone shopping.”
Maze throws a handful of clothes over her head and they fall to the bed behind her. “What are you waiting for?” she questions, looking back over her shoulder. “Get dressed. It’s Friday night, we’re going to a party.”
“Seriously?” I groan, studying the choices she pulled out of the closet and cringing at her awful taste.
“Yes, seriously,” she says, walking back to the bed and looking over the outfits she picked out with a proud smile. “No offense, but your badass, can’t touch me reputation that you worked so hard on has gone way down this week. Everyone thinks you’re this broken girl who needs a big cuddle and the only way to show them who you really are is to go out there and prove to those bitches that you’re the motherfucking boss bitch.”
My body straightens as my chin raises. I may never be able to trust this girl again and I may also be extremely salty about her betrayal, but the girl ain’t wrong. “Yeah. You’re right. I am a motherfucking boss bitch.”
“Exactly, now get your ass dressed and this time, at least spend a whole thirty seconds on your hair.”
I grin back at her, wondering how over the past three minutes she’s gone from the girl I want to hate to the one building me up and making me feel something again. I walk toward my closet, disregarding everything she pulled out and start fresh.