“Oh please,” she scoffed. “You were like Edward and Romeo combined, that’s how badly you’re brooding.”
I turned my head slowly to face her. “Did you just use characters from Twilight and…Shakespeare? I think that might be sacrilege.”
She waved aside my critique. “They were the first examples of excessive male brooding that popped into my head.” She narrowed her eyes. “And don’t even think of knocking Twilight right now. I’m not in the mood.”
I widened my eyes in mock innocence. “I was just pointing out that it was no Shakespeare, that’s all.”
“No, you’re trying to distract me from whatever has you brooding like a Salvatore.”
I cringed at her mention of The Vampire Diaries. She was doing this to annoy me out of my funk. She knew I hated the whole tween vampire trend, and she also knew I’d lived through it all between her and my mom.
I hated the fact that I knew who the Salvatores even were, and I was disgusted with myself for having a favorite brother.
It was official. I needed more guy friends outside of school. I spent entirely too much time with chicks.
“Is this because of Ashley?” she asked.
I stared at her blankly as I tried to figure out what movie, show, or book she was referencing this time. When I came up empty, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “The girl you broke up with this past weekend?”
I blinked. Ashley. Right. Of course. “I didn’t break up with her,” I said quickly. “We were never going out.”
“Mm-hmm.” She was looking at her phone, only half paying attention. “Does she know that?”
“Yes!” Crap. I shouldn’t have come over here. I hated it when Simone went all female on me. She seemed to think it was her personal duty to ensure no girl ever got hurt by me.
She gave me no credit though. I never once lied to these girls. Unlike a certain purple-haired diva I knew, I never pretended to care, and I never made it seem like I wanted a relationship. “I told Ashley from the start that we were just friends with benefits.”
Simone stared at me evenly. “I never once saw you hang out with Ashley as a friend.”
“So?”
“So what kind of friendship was that?” she demanded.
“The kind that came with benefits!” My voice rose in frustration and I sat upright with a sigh. “I came here to get away from fighting, do we really have to do this now?”
It was a low blow and I felt a stab of guilt as Simone leaned against the wall in chastened silence. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said quickly.
I hated when we fought. We did it all the time, of course. But it rarely went beyond bickering and teasing. Normally I didn’t let her needling get to me when she got all up on her high horse about my relationships with the girls I dated—or rather, not dated.
“I just don’t get why you can’t date like a normal person,” she said.
“Because I don’t want a relationship.”
“You did when you were with—”
“Don’t say it,” I snapped. “Do not say it.”
“Rose,” she muttered under her breath.
“I was going to break up with her,” I said for the millionth time. “She just beat me to it.” I jabbed a finger at her because this was a sore point and had been for nearly two years. “You know that better than anyone.”
Her lips twitched with amusement the same way they always did when this topic came up. I was almost a hundred percent positive that she was purposefully playing dumb just to annoy me and it annoyed me even more that I rose to the bait every time she pulled this trick.
We both knew I’d been about to break up with Rose, but Simone insisted on making it sound like I’d been crushed. Like I’d actually wanted to be her boyfriend or something.
Please.
Sure, we’d had a lot of fun during those two weeks, but that was because it was a limited-time thing. If we’d gone on any longer, it would have fallen apart. We both knew that which was why she’d ended it.
I just hated the fact that she’d beaten me to it, that was all.
I didn’t bother wasting my breath by saying all that to Simone. She knew what happened, and she knew my thoughts on it. She just insisted on making me out to be the victim of some heartbreak because it made her laugh.
My best friend looked all sweet and good, but there was an evil side to her that few ever got to know.
Me? I saw it on a daily basis.
“Admit it,” she said now, her arms crossed over her chest as she faced off with me on her bed.
“Admit what?”
She arched a brow. “You’re brooding because of what happened with Rose today.”
I scowled at her, my earlier anger flaring up all over again at the memory.
Also, it was super annoying that my best friend knew me so well because I had been thinking about that.
Thinking. Not brooding.
I was not a freakin’ Salvatore, and I was definitely not an Edward.
“You couldn’t get her to swoon all over you like she did for that half a minute when you two were a thing—”
“We were never a thing,” I interrupted.
She ignored me. “She’s batted her pretty, long eyelashes at every guy in the school since then and it drives you nuts, because you’re not the only person she’s wrapped around her finger—”
“She didn’t have me wrapped around her finger.”
“You thought you could play the same game and have her back like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And your fragile male ego is hurting because it wasn’t that easy.” She didn’t even try to hide her gloat. “She wasn’t that easy.”
I glared at her because…well, crap. She wasn’t totally wrong. Not about that stuff about me watching her fawn all over other guys for the past two years. I’d written her off as soon as she’d walked away from me that day. I hadn’t given a second thought to the guys
