Page 94 of Forbidden Romeo
For now, we had to break. So we could come together again stronger later.
I only hoped Katherine would understand that, too.
I couldn’t hear what Nate was saying, but I watched as she squealed and ran around the counter, launching herself at him and hugging him tightly.
Jealousy reverberated in my body, like the ugly monster it was. Jealousy I had no right to feel. She wasn’t mine anymore…
Though she didn’t know that yet.
“You’re fucking leaving, aren’t you?” Addison said, yanking over a chair and plopping herself down at the table next to me.
“What?”
“Your car,” she clarified. “I saw it outside, fully packed with your shit.” Then, with a lift of her chin, she gestured to Katherine. “There’s no way she fucking knows yet and is smiling and giggling like that. Which means you haven’t told her. You popped her fucking cherry on stage in front of everyone and now you’re leaving her here to defend herself against assholes like me?” Addison snorted and took a sip from her coffee. “With a boyfriend like you, who needs enemies, right?”
“You don’t know a fucking thing, Addison.”
“Maybe not. But I’ve gotten to know Kate pretty damn well. And you’re a dumbass if you think she’s going to just let you go quietly into the night. Fuck, she’ll probably drop out of school and follow you to wherever you’re going like the lovesick puppy she is.”
Dad’s words echoed in my mind. You’re going to have to make sure she doesn’t want to speak to you again.
I never did quite figure out how to do that. Not in any way that wouldn’t permanently ruin her.
“Ohhhh,” Addison said. “You want her to follow you, don’t you?”
“No,” I snapped. “That can’t happen. If she… if we… it just would all be for nothing. She can’t speak to me again. At least not until after she graduates.”
“Then you’ve got to do something unforgivable. And judging from the packed car you’ve got, you need to do it soon.”
Across the room, Nate still had his arm around her even though she’d long since released him from the hug. His hand rested at the small of her back, his thumb circling in gentle little strokes.
Fuck me, this hurt.
“Holden,” Addison snapped.
I blinked, her sharp voice, tearing my gaze away from the scene in front of me and turned to look at Addison, confused. “What?”
Her elbow hit my textbook, sending it to hit the ground with a deafening crack. And before I could react, she cupped my jaw and pulled me in to kiss her.
“Mmph,” I grunted, trying to push her off of me, but she nipped my lip hard enough that when I gasped, she leveraged the moment to dive her tongue into my mouth.
When I did finally detach her from my lips, she dove on my ear and whispered loudly, “You’re fucking welcome, Holden. You owe me.”
I turned slowly to find Katherine standing in front of us at the table, holding my fallen economics book in her arms, shell-shocked, with her mouth gaping open.
“Is this for real?” she whispered. “Addison?”
I was silent for a long beat, the anguish on her face like a searing knife gliding into my gut.
Addison’s laugh covered for me. “You didn’t actually think he loved you, did you?”
“I wasn’t asking you,” she snapped. “Holden?”
There comes a time in every actor’s life they have to play a role they hate. This was my time. Curtain up.
I cleared my throat to stop it from cracking.
“I got what I needed.” It was all I could manage to say.