“Tell me what you said!” Alex commanded.
“I- she trapped me, okay? Took me up to her apartment and stripped me and threw my clothes in the shower so I couldn’t leave.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. “Why in the bloody hell would you go up to her apartment? She’s Muffy’s roommate and best friend? What were you trying to do? And why did you let her strip you? Are you seriously that much of a man whore that you can’t resist doing shit with the most inappropriate woman on earth? Couldn’t you tell that she didn’t even like you?”
“She liked me just fine,” Jay ground out. There was a strange spark in his eyes that Alex had never seen before. Probably another shade of guilt.
“And you what? Confessed everything like she was getting out the torture implements? Or did she just have to bat her eyelashes and flash you a pretty smile and you proceeded to screw everything up so massively that it has no hope of ever being fixed?”
“I- okay, I might have said something about- uh- well- she knew who we were. She confronted me. I had to tell her, and it kept spilling out from there. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t want to do it, but what choice did I have?”
“You had a choice! You could have kept your mouth shut!”
“She was persistent. She came at me like a damn lawyer hungry for blood in the courtroom or something.”
“You watch too many crime dramas. You should have run, Jay, run out of there even in your goddamn boxers. You should have hit the street and got in your damn car and drove as far and fast as you could. You should not have spilled everything even if she hogtied you and whipped you and pulled your fingernails off.”
“That’s very medieval.”
“I don’t care what it is! You’re supposed to be my friend. You should have had my back. I was going to try and explain it to Muffy. I- I wanted to tell her. I wanted to try and make her understand. I was going to explain, but you didn’t give me a chance.”
Jay’s mouth flapped open. “You mean- uh- you actually want to keep seeing her?”
“Of course I do.” Alex reached up and gripped his short hair hard enough to pull it out. “How could you not know that? You seriously think that it was just a bet? After you met her last night? She’s a nice girl. She’s smart and pretty and she’s so damn brave. She’s just… she’s the most incredible person I’ve ever met. She loves all the little things. Yes, like going to see the stars. Yes, she was fine with paying for me. She was fine with the fact that I lived in a shitty little basement apartment. She was fun. She knew how to really enjoy life. When she laughed, it was actually genuine. She would rather risk her life than see an old lady get mugged. She’s beautiful, on the inside and the outside.”
“Far too good for you then,” Jay snorted.
That was all it took. Jay never seemed to take anything seriously. It was beyond him that his heart was currently hurting and that he wasn’t just pissed off. That he felt destroyed inside, like he might never actually recover. It didn’t matter that it had just been a week. It was that he’d ruined everything that could have been. That might have been. The future possibility. Jay had taken the rightness that Alex felt for the first time in his entire damn life and wrecked it carelessly. And he currently did not give a shit.
“This isn’t just some game,” Alex growled. “This is my life! This is her life! You… you asshole!”
“Me?” Jay’s eyes widened. “I’m not the one who took this girl out over and over again and lied to her! You knew her for like, a week. I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked out. It never does. Wasn’t that your point? That in the end, everything just goes straight to shit? It would have ended up the same way. You should be thanking me for helping you dodge a bullet.”
“A- a bullet?”
Alex saw red. He let out a bellow of rage and the last thing he saw before he plowed square into Jay’s chest, was the shocked expression on the guy’s smug face.
They went down hard, Jay landing on the floor, the breath knocked out of his lungs in a loud whoosh. He reacted fast, though. They’d grown up tough, they were boys. They played sports. They got in scraps together. They kicked each other’s asses all the time.
Even though he was winded, Jay punched out, catching Alex on the side of the face. Pain radiated out from the spot like someone had just thrust his face into the flames or a roaring fire. His skin lit up and the rage blooming in his chest spread to the rest of his body.