Before (After 5) - Chapter 72

“No, no one wants to play that shit,” I say, glaring at Molly. Therise is clueless and looks anxious and slightly uncomfortable.

“Oh, come on. I bet it would be fun,” Jace says.

Molly nods along. “Yeah, from the looks of her, maybe you could win—”

Logan reaches up and covers his girlfriend’s mouth. I still can’t believe these two are together.

“Cut it out,” he says to her.

She rolls her eyes but stays quiet once his hand moves from her big mouth.

“I’m not having any part in a repeat of last year. That was too much drama.” Logan kisses Molly’s bare shoulder, and she smiles, for real this time, looking far less evil while doing so.

Therise looks at me with a wrinkled brow, then at everyone else and their suddenly weird energy. “What was last year?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I proclaim, and look at my friends, hoping they’ll keep their mouths closed. I just met this girl—it’s too early for her to be bombarded with this crap.

“This guy named Hard—” Molly just can’t keep her mouth closed.

“We aren’t going to talk about Hessa anymore!” Logan groans. “They’re like that reality-show couple that no one was supposed to mention.”

“What the fuck is a Hessa?” Nate’s girl asks.

Molly proudly raises her hand. “I came up with it!” she practically shouts. “I get full credit for that shit. I named those crazy fucks, and I expect an invite to their wedding.” She laughs. Her hair is a washed-out pink; it’s faded a lot, and she hasn’t dyed it in a while. It’s mostly blond now and in an elvin haircut.

“They aren’t getting married,” I snap at her.

I’m so tired of hearing about those two. I’m tired of seeing Tessa’s posts on Facebook. She’s so happy in New York; Hardin’s so happy; everyone is so damn happy.

Yay for them.

“Not right now, but I would bet money on that shit.” She smiles. “And I? I would win.” She’s drawn circles around her eyes with black pencil, and when she winks at me, she looks like a cat.

Logan adds salt to my wound by nodding sagely to this. Like it’s so obvious to everyone.

Molly waves her hand for silence among the group. “Anyway, before you all came, we were reliving the grand tale of Zed’s ex-girlfriend.”

“Wasn’t my girlfriend,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Damn,” someone says. Jace, maybe?

“Well . . .” Therise stands to her feet and awkwardly cracks her knuckles. “This is when I leave.” She smiles hesitantly and walks away.

I must have a pained or annoyed or angry expression—I felt all of those things—because Logan pipes up, “You may as well let her go; you’re only going to gain another enemy. She probably has a boyfriend who’ll slash the tires on your truck.”

Apparently my friends have all decided they’ll give me shit all week about my history of expensive mistakes.

This expectation that my dating life will always be one disaster after another deflates my anger a little bit. I don’t have the energy to be mad, really, when it’s always the same. “I didn’t know that chick was engaged, and I’m pretty sure it was her, not her fiancé, that did that shit,” I say, and cringe when I remember what Jonah Soto did to my car. That dude should not be able to hold a professor position here. Total nutcase.

Nate shrugs, taking a swig of his drink. “Stop sleeping with random chicks, then.”

“That was over a year ago, and how was I supposed to know that her fiancé was going to be a professor here?”

That whole weekend was a disaster. If I’d known the chick was at the club for her own bachelorette party, I wouldn’t have gone home with her. I mean, there’s a reason tradition dictates they wear those tacky feather boas and fake tiaras and that sash that reads BACHELORETTE or something. It’s like a fair-warning label so that guys don’t do something stupid—or she doesn’t do something stupid. The sash is like the first thing you’d have to take off, so it being there is a big reminder to her that, oh yeah, she’s getting married. In this case—the very next day.

It was just my luck that the only time in my life I had a one-night stand, this was the result. (I may have led my friends to believe a generally exaggerated version of my sex life, but they don’t need to know that.) The guy was cool, cooler than I would have been, until he tried to get me removed from the science program and fought to keep Hardin from being expelled. No one seemed to question why a young professor would take the side of a troublemaker he doesn’t even know. That was bullshit, but at the end of the day, I’m glad Hardin wasn’t expelled.

“Who are you all talking shit to, anyway”—I wave an arm at the group—“because Molly here has fucked half of you.”

“Watch it,” Logan warns, and everyone tenses.

But instead of arguing with him, I choose to follow after the new girl.

I don’t know her, but she seems chill and she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Yes, she reminds me of Tessa, and yes, it’s taken a long time for me to get over that one, and maybe this is a bad idea—but aren’t most things?

With all that swirling through my mind, I get up to find her.

I didn’t mean for the situation with Tessa to become what it did. I cared about her, yes, but I got caught up in my stupid jealousy and petty need for some type of revenge against Hardin for his having sex with Samantha. I did like Tessa a lot, but my feelings for her were nothing close to the way Hardin felt about her.

Samantha was amazing; she was fun and a few years older than me. That was a turn-on, but she was wild. Since this thing with Tessa ended, I’ve often thought her relationship with Hardin was equivalent to what I had with Samantha. But Samantha slept with Hardin, and didn’t see much of a problem with it. She acted like it was a normal thing to do, to sleep with my friend. He didn’t care either, of course.

I cared. I was devastated and pissed, and I let it fester inside of me, waiting for the right time to strike back at him. Tessa trusted me, even after my involvement with the Bet in the beginning. I was the one who told her the details about it, and she always came to me when she needed me. That was the problem, though: she only came to me when he tossed her to the side, and I’m not about that kind of thing. I don’t want to always be second choice. And besides, it was too much drama, and after the initial win of getting under Hardin’s skin, it became exhausting to keep running to her rescue and keep up with their childish relationship.