#Selfie (Hashtag Series Book 4) (18 page)

I glanced at him and then away.

“Maybe,” I echoed.

“The BuzzBoss strikes again,” Missy said. She was looking down at her phone.

I groaned. “Who did they call out now?”

Everyone picked up their phones to see.

“No one really, but it’s kind of an ominous notification.”

When I read what it said, my stomach sank. It was about betrayal. I knew it wasn’t about me, but it sure hit close to home.

“I feel bad for whoever the Boss is talking about,” Rimmel said, putting down her phone. “He’ll probably start calling them out.”

“I’m surprised the dean allows the notifications to continue. I mean, the Boss gives, what, one or two actual announcements a month? The rest is all gossip and drama.” Missy frowned.

I started picking up my lunch. My stomach was in knots and I needed to get out of here for a while. “I gotta go. I need to check on Prada before my last class.”

Before I could get up, I felt something brush the side of my foot. At first I thought I just kicked the table leg, and I moved my foot away. Yet whatever it was followed.

Chills rushed up my spine. I knew then it was him.

Braeden was rubbing his foot against mine.

Is this what my life was reduced to?

Wanting someone I couldn’t have, someone I didn’t particularly like? Waiting on stolen moments for a touch, a look, or a chance to wear a shirt no one knew I had?

I couldn’t do this anymore.

I wouldn’t.

I yanked my foot back and jumped up from the table.

“I’ll see you ladies tonight.” I picked up my tray and then hesitated. “Bye, guys.”

“See ya, Blondie,” Braeden said.

It pissed me off. How could he be so damn casual?

Because you feel more than he does.

Mortified. That’s exactly how I felt. I kept trying to make myself better, get back on the right path, yet I kept getting in my own way.

I left without another word. I dumped everything in the trash, hefted my bag higher on my shoulder, and rushed from the food court.

My mind was a million miles away, and I wasn’t paying attention, so I collided into something hard and bounced back.

“Damn, girl,” a familiar voice said when he steadied me. “You gonna try out for a linebacker next season?”

“Trent!” I gasped. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I noticed.”

“Are you okay?” I worried.

He grunted. “You think that’s all it takes to hurt me?”

“Well…” I didn’t mean to insult him.

He chuckled. “I was kidding.”

“Right.” I tucked a strand of hair that had come loose from my bun behind my ear.

“Looks like you’ve got a lot on your mind. What’s up?”

I felt my shoulders sag. The weight on them was becoming impossibly hard to carry. “Just one of those days.”

“Lucky for you, I got what you need.”

Before I could ask what he was talking about, he pulled me close. My cheek went against his shoulder and his arms came around me. The palm of his hand pressed into the back of my head, and he hugged me tight.

It felt good, and I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I tucked my hands up beneath me, resting them on his chest.

The thing with Trent was so uncomplicated. So easy. He didn’t seem to have an endgame or an agenda. He didn’t seem to want anything from me other than my time. He wasn’t off-limits and he was really good-looking.

What the hell was my problem? Why had I been trying to come up with ways to cancel our date?

“You eat?” Trent asked against my hair.

I nodded.

“I was just on my way in.”

“Oh.” I pulled back. “I’m sorry. You should get something.”

“Where you headed?”

“I gotta go back to my dorm. I, uh, forgot something for my next class.”

“I’ll walk you,” he offered.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Woman, I’m always hungry. But I’m never so hungry I would pass up a couple minutes with a beautiful blonde.” His eyes looked green today and they crinkled at the corners. His sandy hair flopped over his forehead.

I smiled. “Okay, then. Thanks.”

“I’ll take this,” he said, slipping a hand beneath the strap on my shoulder and relieving me of my bag. “Seems like it’s weighing you down.”

Actually, it was just life, but I didn’t bother to tell him that.

Once my backpack was on his back, Trent draped an arm across my shoulders and tugged me into his side. “Shall we?”

I felt sheltered in his hold. I liked that feeling. I’d felt so exposed these last few weeks, like a sapling in a field without protection from a storm.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to get out of my date with Trent.

Maybe he was exactly what I needed.

Braeden

I couldn’t help but stare at the unfolding scene before me.

Ivy was so uptight at lunch I wondered if steam was going to come out of her ears. And there were dark circles beneath her eyes, like she hadn’t been sleeping.

I just wanted her to know I was here. I just wanted…

Hell, I don’t know what I wanted.

I didn’t like seeing her that way.

So I touched her the only way I knew how. I brushed my foot against hers. It was meant to comfort her, to tell her even though I didn’t look at her, the distance between us wasn’t as far as she thought.

It backfired.

She freaked out even more and fled from the table, right into Trent’s waiting arms.

I knew just by his body language he was flirting with her. The set of his shoulders, the way his eyes focused completely on her. She was tense at first.

Until he pulled her into his arms.

Right there.

Right fucking there in front of everyone.

In front of me.

He had no right to touch her.

I waited for her to pull away.

She didn’t.

If anything, she looked relieved, comforted even.

I wanted to be the one to comfort her.

I watched him lead her out of the food court, and the entire time I wondered where they were going. Was he going back to her room with her so they could be alone?

“B.” Romeo’s voice cut into my inner turmoil. There was something in his tone that made me look down. The plastic fork I’d been eating with snapped in half in my hand. The bottom part fell onto my plate while the rest was being held hostage by my fingers.

The prongs were digging into my skin, but I didn’t even feel it.

I dropped it and sat back.

“I have to swing by the library on my way to class,” Rimmel said and started picking up her stuff.

“I’m actually headed in that direction, too,” Missy remarked. “The auditorium.”

“We can walk together,” Rimmel said.

“Leave your stuff, baby. I’ll pick it up.” Romeo motioned at her tray. “Yours too, Missy.”

The girls got up quickly, like they knew Romeo wanted to be alone with me. But it didn’t stop Rim from fitting her small body between Rome and me to hug me. I wrapped an arm around her because brothers didn’t leave their sisters hanging.

“Will you stop by tonight?” she whispered in my ear. “I wanna talk.”

I groaned. Why the hell did women like to talk so much? Talking was overrated.

“Please, B?”

“Of course, tutor girl,” I replied in her ear.

She pecked a kiss on my cheek and pulled back. “Bye.”

“Give me some sugar, woman,” Romeo said.

She laughed and kissed him. He didn’t let her pull away too fast, though.

“I’ll pick you up after class and drive you home before I head out of town,” he told her.

After agreeing, she and Missy left.

Romeo cut right to the chase. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I gasped. “You kiss your momma with that mouth?”

His comeback was quick. “I kiss
your
momma with this mouth.”

I laughed. If anyone else said that shit about my mom, I’d deck ‘em. But Rome was different.

“Seriously.” He leaned on the table. “Is this about him? Has he called again?”

“No,” I growled. “And he better not.”

“Mom okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” I confirmed.

“Then it must be a woman,” he surmised.

“What makes you say that?”

“Maybe the broken fork on your plate? The frustrated way you move? The way your fists clench when anything at all gets under your skin?”

I shoved my hand through my hair and cussed.

“You need to get laid or something?”

I laughed. “If only it was that easy.”

Romeo laughed this time. “B, I know damn well you could have any woman in this place if you just crooked your finger. The fact that you haven’t… Well, that’s very telling.”

“Just say what you wanna say,” I spat. I didn’t have time for his analysis.

“Did you sleep with Ivy?”

“Is it that goddamned obvious?” I groaned.

Romeo slapped me on the back, then crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “I don’t think so. But I know you very well.”

I grunted.

“When?” he asked.

“Spring break. Our last night.”

That surprised him. I saw it right there in his eyes. “You mean to tell me you ain’t had sex in over two weeks?”

Why was that so hard to believe? “Who said I haven’t?”

He glanced down at the fork on my plate.

“Fuck you.”

Romeo chuckled. “I always wondered when you two would combust.”

“What?” My voice was sharp.

“C’mon, B. You can’t say you never saw it. You two have been at each other’s throats from almost day one. It’s like you live to insult each other. Makes me sorry I was the one that grabbed her that night all those months ago at the bonfire.”

Rage and jealousy hit me so hard and fast there was no controlling it. I leapt out of my seat, sending it clattering to the floor. I grabbed up Romeo by the shirt and pulled him toward me.

He was still in his chair. He didn’t go on the defensive to my threatening moves, but his eyes narrowed.

Whispers rippled through the room, and I was aware of people staring. I didn’t care.

“You sleep with her?” I growled low enough only he could hear.

“You know I didn’t,” he growled back.

“You fucking touched her.”

“Get your hands off me,” Romeo warned, and beneath my hands, his body stiffened.

That alone would have sent most guys pissing in their drawers. But I wasn’t most guys. I knew how tough Romeo was, but I also knew I could take him. I was so pissed off right then I knew I could.

“You wanna do this?” Romeo intoned. “Let’s do it.”

I shoved him away from me and backed up a step. My chest heaved.

Romeo stood. He snagged some kid, a freshman by the looks of him, by his sleeve. “You,” he said gruffly, “clean this up.”

The kid looked at the trays on the table and then back at Romeo.

He nodded. Romeo dug some cash out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “There’s your tip.”

He dismissed the kid and grabbed up my bag and his. “Outside.”

I went, not because he ordered, but because I needed some air. I was out of control. Fuck, I’d almost just attacked my best friend.

Outside, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the seventies. It was a pretty nice day, but I barely noticed. We walked to a grassy strip alongside the food court, and Romeo tossed our shit down on the ground.

“You wanna hit me, go ahead.” He shoved me.

My teeth clenched.

“C’mon, man. If that’ll make you feel better, do it.”

I thought about it. I felt like punching something. But not him. Not my best friend. You know you had a true friend for life when they were willing to let you use their face as a punching bag.

“Rimmel would kick my ass,” I said, relenting.

“She’s scary,” Romeo agreed.

It was a good joke, but I still wasn’t relaxed enough to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” I spat, pissed at myself. “I shouldn’t have lost it like that in there. On you.”

He shrugged. “I get it. The thought of anyone else touching your girl, especially your best friend, can make a guy crazy.”

“She’s not my girl,” I insisted.

“Could have fooled me.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Missy?” he guessed.

“Are you fucking psychic?”

He laughed. “I was thinking about opening up a hotline. 1-800-I-know-your-business.”

“Maybe you’re the BuzzBoss,” I guessed.

Rome gave me a look.

It wasn’t a confirmation or a denial.

A group of girls walked by and checked out Romeo, and then their eyes slid to me. I ignored them.

“Official or not, she’s your girl,” Romeo said. “You didn’t even give those girls the time of day. That’s the first time I’ve seen that.”

“They weren’t hot,” I muttered.

He laughed. We both knew they were totally hot.

“So what’s up with the tension I felt between you and Missy at the table?”

“I never should have slept with her.” I groaned.

“So she’s still interested.”

“It’s like the chick can’t get the message. I don’t want her,” I replied.

“And that’s why she didn’t hook up with Trent at the beach.”

I made a rude sound. “So now he’s hot for Ivy.”

“I noticed. He asked her out.”

I gave him a level glare. “You sound like a chick passing gossip.”

He shrugged. “Gotta have this conversation sometime. I’m leaving in a couple hours. I can’t leave you here all riled up and no one to bring you down.”

That made me feel like shit. Because it was true. For years, he’s been the one to anchor me. To give me an outlet for all the rage.

“Rim asked me to stop by later,” I told him.

“Rim ain’t your punching bag.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’d never touch her.”

Romeo sighed. “Look, I know. Sorry.”

I shrugged. “You’re entitled. I did worse a few minutes ago.”

“I didn’t sleep with her. I swear to God.”

“I believe you.”

“We just made out.”

I slashed my hand through the air. “I don’t want to hear it,” I growled. “It’s bad enough Trent’s all over her.”

Romeo’s brows shot up. “He sleeping with her?”

“I’ll fucking kill him.”

“Calm down,” Romeo said. “Chill.”

I paced in the grass, trying to get the image of Trent and Ivy together out of my head.

“I’m having a hard time believing Ivy’s entertaining Trent when you two—”

“We aren’t anything,” I said, cutting him off. “It was just that one time. She insists there’s nothing between us. She doesn’t want to hurt Missy.”

“It’s a tough spot,” Romeo said. “She probably feels guilty as hell.”

I didn’t say anything. I just paced some more.

“And that’s why she’s trying to start something with Trent. To make room for Missy.”

“I tried with Missy,” I confessed. “Last weekend. Hell, it would be so much easier with her.”

“I take it things didn’t go well?”

“Basically, I revved her up, then shut her down. She was pissed, with good reason. And then I ended up outside Ivy’s door.”

“You got it bad, man.” Romeo seemed amused.

“This isn’t funny.”

He sighed. “Look. I’ve been where you are. Not in exactly the same place, but close enough. Rim and I seemed impossible in the beginning too. There was a lot between us, but we made it work.”

“I can’t.” And damned if that didn’t make something inside me hurt.

“Why not?”

I burst around and flung out my arm at the building. “Were you not just up there? I almost pounded my best friend. You know me, Rome. My temper. You know how hot I run. I can’t trust myself with her. What if I—”

Romeo cut me off by shoving me hard.

Then he shoved me again. I stumbled back. “What the—”

“Come on, then,” Romeo yelled. “Hit me!”

“You’re out of your damn mind,” I yelled.

He swung at me. The fucker actually tried to punch me. I ducked and doubled back around. My fists clenched at my sides.

“If you’re so uncontrollable, then go ahead!”

I pulled my arm back. Romeo readied his stance. Just before I delivered a blow, I slumped forward. “I’m not gonna hit you, man.”