Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“Wisdom and loyalty, my ass.”
Hannah laughs. “I’m pretty sure they’re the school’s equivalent of Slytherin, they were just too afraid to say that.”
Even though I felt—a bit dramatically—like I’d never smile again five minutes ago, I find myself smiling, too. “Fucking Slytherins.”
“I’m a total Hufflepuff, I can’t hang with Slytherins,” Hannah says, shaking her head.
I shake my head, too, a little in awe. I’ve never had a friend with energy as pure as hers before, but it’s addictive and oddly uplifting. “My head feels so much clearer when I’m around you. Every time I see you, you clear the Dare fog. Maybe you should move in with me so I can get back to making good decisions on a regular basis.”
Hannah cracks a smile. “Don’t tell him that. I ran into him at my house when he was over visiting Anae, and he followed me to the kitchen to grill me about you.”
My heart stalls. “He did?”
She nods. “He wanted to know if we talked about him.”
My eyes widen. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. I’m not his spy. Anyway, before he wandered off, he told me I’m allowed to be your friend. If he knew I helped clear your mind about him, he’d change his mind. And I know you probably think you’d never let him tell you who to be friends with anyway, but believe me, when Dare wants to get something done, it gets done. He probably wouldn’t go about it in a straightforward way where you’d see what he’s doing, he would just find a way to turn you against me so it seemed like your decision. He did that with one of Anae’s friends he didn’t like. She lets him play, but not with her friends. So he fucked one of them. Anae went for her so hard, she had to leave school.”
My eyes are stuck roughly the size of dinner plates. “What?”
She nods solemnly. “Be careful with him. He’s tricky.”
“When you say she lets him play…?”
“He’s allowed to fuck other people as long as she knows about it and gives it her blessing.”
My stomach sinks.
My chest cavity seems to shrink, making breathing nearly impossible.
“He… didn’t tell you that,” she realizes belatedly.
“No, he sure didn’t.”
And there have been a lot of times he probably should have.
What the hell has been the point of torturing me and letting me feel like a terrible person for liking him when, apparently, he’s in some kind of open relationship?
And why would he leave a relationship like that?
He wouldn’t.
That’s the simple answer.
I’m a fucking idiot.
I don’t want to be in a relationship like that, and he’s not going to leave a situation where he has unlimited free passes to do whatever the hell he wants to be monogamous with me. Why would he?
“Sorry,” she says, grimacing. “It’s not common knowledge, but with the picture and everything, I thought you knew.”
I shake my head. “Apparently, I don’t know anything.”
Chapter twenty-six
Aubrey
After countless rounds of back and forth with myself over whether I should cancel dinner with Dare tonight, the clock runs out.
A knock at the door tells me he’s here, and my stomach twists with anxiety.
I know I should have canceled. Hannah was the breath of fresh air I needed to clear the fog Dare constantly leaves me shrouded in. If I’d have taken advantage of that clarity, maybe I could have put myself back on track, but I know the moment I let him back in, he’ll fuck me all up.
I didn’t even know what to tell Mom about him coming over for dinner. Earlier, when I was still in his bubble and I hadn’t gone to school yet, I had fantastical notions of telling her he was my boyfriend.
My, how things change in the span of one day.
I’m miserable when I walk to the door. I don’t want to open it. It feels like opening the door to a vampire I know will suck all the common sense out of me and inviting him in to do more damage.
The door opens and Dare stands there, a charming smile on his handsome face and bags full of groceries hanging off his arms. Nothing about his smile changes, exactly, but the moment he sees my face, he knows something is off. I can see it in his eyes.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I say back, my tone subdued. I take a step back to let him inside.
He walks in, watching me carefully as he walks past, but my mom is here and he must want to make a good impression because he puts that winning smile right back on his face to greet her.
I introduce them, but not with stars in my eyes and a goofy grin on my face like I probably would have earlier. I thank Dare and take the grocery bags to the kitchen so I can unpack them while he talks to my mom. He has his gym bag with him and tells her he’ll be back to talk to her after he showers.