I wasn’t sure if I should be honest or not, but I thought if Brady was ever going to believe any of the crazy story of how Matteo and I had met, I needed to start being truthful right now.
I nodded. “I do.”
Brady shook his head. “Athena never meant anything to me. I was just dumb and scared. I might’ve cheated first, but it was just sex, Hazel. Cheating of the heart is much worse.”
It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “Who…who’s Athena?”
Brady scoffed. “Great. So this wasn’t even you getting even with me? You had no clue I’d screwed up when you went and started fucking my best friend. You know, I always thought you and I were different, that you were too good for me. But it turns out, you’re just as big a piece of shit as I am.”
I shook my head, still not fully understanding. “Who’s Athena? The woman you work with?”
Brady waved me off. “You know what? I’m done here. If you want the details of what happened between Athena and me, ask your boyfriend. He was such a trusted friend to me that I told him all about her.”
Holy shit. Hot anger rushed through me as I realized how long I’d blamed myself for the end of our engagement. And no one had been telling me the truth.
He caught my eyes one more time, then turned around and walked out the front door.Chapter 30* * *Matteo“Come on…pick up.” I paced back and forth in my apartment.
My mom frowned. “She’s still not answering?”
I dragged a hand through my hair and shook my head. It had been three days since Brady had called, slurring his words, the night Hazel flew home. My cell phone had woken me at four in the morning East Coast time. No call that comes in at that hour is ever good, but when I grabbed my cell off the nightstand and saw the name flashing on the screen, I knew. I knew.
I’d been a coward over the last month, sneaking around behind my friend’s back, so I’d answered, steadying myself to take my lumps. But Brady was barely comprehensible in his drunken state. I’d managed to make out that he’d been waiting at Hazel’s house after she landed and found some photos of the two of us on her camera. After that, the rest of the conversation mostly consisted of him rambling and calling me a lowlife piece of shit. He was right. I couldn’t argue with him about that. Every time he hung up on me and then called back fifteen minutes later to yell some more, the least I could do was answer the phone and let him get some of it out. My cell finally stopped ringing a little before six, his time.
I’d waited another hour to call Hazel, but she didn’t answer. By late afternoon, I’d hit redial at least fifty times and was starting to think the worst. Desperate to know she was okay, I even tried Brady again. But he didn’t pick up either. Entirely freaked out on the other side of the country, I was considering calling the police and having them check in on Hazel. But then I remembered she’d once used my phone to call her friend Felicity, so I searched my call history and dialed her instead.
After explaining who I was and giving her a quick rundown, I begged Felicity to go over and check on Hazel. The hour it took for her to call me back was sixty of the worst minutes of my life. The crazy shit running through my head was unimaginable. But Felicity eventually called, and she assured me Hazel was physically fine. While I was relieved, I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t have picked up the phone and told me that herself.
Granted, I was the one who’d suggested we have no contact when she went back home, but this was an emergency. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t get Felicity to tell me much other than Brady had found out, and Hazel didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.
It had killed me to not hear Hazel’s voice myself, but I’d given it two days before trying to call her again. But six days had passed now since she flew back home, and I still couldn’t get her to pick up. I’d texted, called, and even tried sending her messages on social media. Last night, on Christmas Eve, I was certain it would be the day she’d finally pick up. When she didn’t, I couldn’t stop myself from calling Felicity a second time. While I couldn’t get her to tell me much more than the first time I called, she did shed some light on why Hazel was ignoring me. Fucking Brady had told her about the woman he’d slept with, along with the fact that I’d known about it.