Big snorted derisively, taking another big gulp of the amber liquid in his glass and feeling it burn a warm, sick trail down into the pit of his stomach. "Sure—or maybe we could just find an empty bathroom and get it over with."
Her eyes narrowed and her lips turned down, but she said nothing.
"You'd like that, right, Alisha?" he asked bitterly, setting his glass down with a thud on the granite countertop. His hands splayed over the curve of her hips, his fingers digging in. "For me to nail you up against a door while the party continues on the other side? Or is that too risky since your fucking friends might find out?"
Alisha snapped back as thought he'd slapped her. (He might as well have; the words hurt just as badly.) "What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked heatedly. She heard a familiar laugh behind her and she froze.
"What's going on in here?" Maggie asked; her brows furrowed as she looked between her best friend and Big.
Big's eyes fell to Alisha's face and he saw the look of sheer terror and watched as she swallowed thickly. Fuck this. All of it. He wasn't going to let Alisha Larrington pull the goddamn strings any more. He lifted his eyes to Maggie, noticing that James was there now, too. He avoided his best friend's eyes and kept his own trained on Maggie.
"Alisha and I have been fucking since November. Merry Christmas," he said gruffly and stormed out.
"What?" Maggie sputtered, watching the blur that was Big blow by her.
Hot, angry tears stung Alisha's eyes and threatened to spill over. She couldn't deal with the questions Maggie inevitably had right now. Right now she had to find Jake and figure out what the hell was going on with him.
"Alisha!" Maggie snapped, grabbing Alisha's arm as she tried to hurry past. "Is it true?" she asked in disbelief.
"Not now, Maggie," Alisha spat, jerking her arm free and rushing for the door.
She just missed him as the elevator doors closed; she knew it was fruitless to yell at him to hold the doors though. He made it pretty clear he didn't want to talk to her, but Jake Biggerman had another thing coming if he thought he could act like that and get away with it. She was going to get to the bottom of this. Eyeing the door to the stairwell, she removed her high heels and ran for the exit.
Alisha reached the street level and pushed through the door, spotting him a few steps ahead of her. "Jake!" she yelled, seeing red when he didn't even pause and kept walking away from her. She hurried after him, the cold sidewalk biting into her feet. "Goddammit, Jake, stop!"
Part of him wanted to stop, to have this out with her and clear the air; but he was kind of drunk and he was afraid of what would come out of his mouth.
So he kept walking. And she kept yelling.
He finally stopped when something nailed him right between the shoulder blades. "The fuck?" he whirled around and saw one high heeled shoe on the ground. "You threw a fucking shoe at me?" he asked, completely incredulous as she stomped down the sidewalk towards him.
"You wouldn't stop," she said through clenched teeth, wrapping her arms around her body, trying to fight off a shiver.
She came outside without a coat. In the middle of the goddamn winter. "Dammit, Alisha, it's freezing. Just go back inside," he snapped.
"No," she bit back. "Why the hell did you do that? You knew I was going to tell her when the time was right. I thought we agreed to keep things between us for a while longer? It's nobody's business but ours anyway."
"But the time was never right, was it? You fought so hard to keep this a secret. I wasn't asking you to take out a fucking billboard, Alisha, but you knew I was tired of hiding from our friends."
"So you just blurted out the truth in the crudest way possible? In the middle of a party? Goddammit!"
"This is what pisses me off (and hurt his feelings, but fuck all if he was going to tell her that) …I'm good enough for you to spread your legs for but not good enough for your precious Maggie to know about. If you wanted anonymous sex so badly, Larrington, maybe you should have picked out some random guy in your audience instead of me."
The sound of her palm connecting with the side of his face cracked through night air like a whip. "You're a fucking asshole," she choked out, her voice growing tight with tears.
"Yep and you knew that going in to this, so I don't know why you're acting surprised." (Great. He'd made her cry. Never before had he felt like a bigger piece of shit than he did at that exact moment.)
"My God, Jake," she began, hot tears trailing down her cheeks despite her best efforts to keep them from falling, "what the hell happened between the guest room and the kitchen? It doesn't make any sense." She swiped angrily at the tears with the back of her hand, annoyed by his silence. "Just tell me!" she yelled, desperate for an answer that would allow her to fix this. (Because she had to fix this.)
"Why does it matter? This thing is over now, right?" he asked coldly. "Weren't those your terms? We do this for as long as it's fun. This isn't fucking fun for me, Alisha." He shrugged and bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood.
"What are you talking about?" she implored.
He really needed to get the hell away from her or else those shimmering eyes of hers would bring him to his knees. "Come on, baby," he sneered, "we were just fucking. And now we're not. Don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it."
"Thank you, Jake, for cheapening everything between us," Alisha sniffled, brushing away more tears.
"Whatever, babe,"
