Page 77 of Falling for Them

It’s a good thing my tea hasn’t arrived yet, because if I had anything in my mouth, I would be spitting it out in shock.“What?”

“I made a mistake,” he says.

“How, precisely?”I ask.

“How?”

“How did you make a mistake?What do you think you did wrong?”Because I know what he did wrong, but I’m curious as hell as to whathethinks about it.

“Um…I shouldn’t have seen other women while we were together.”

He stops there.Like he’s run out of ideas.

“Yeah, this isn’t going to work,” I say.

“Why?”He blinks at me with his bright blue eyes.

I thought I was tired at the end of my shift at Bartleby’s, but that exhaustion is nothing compared to what I’m feeling now, even though I’m sitting down and my feet aren’t screaming in pain.

“It just won’t work, Joel.We’re in different places, we want different things.”

“Are you in love with my dad or something?”he asks.“Because he hasn’t had an actual girlfriend since…forever.He just sleeps around.You were another notch in the bedpost.”

“Like you can talk about that,” I say, my own sense of indignation rising.“We weren’t even broken up and you were sleeping around.”

“Andyoucan talk about it?”Joel slams down his menu.

The server, who was approaching with our drinks, does an abrupt about-face.

Joel continues, “You’rethe slutty one.”

It takes me a full five seconds to process what he just said.“I’m the—Joel, you really need to stop talking about this.I’ll just go and we can pretend this conversation never happened.”

“What, because you don’t like the sound of the truth?”

I stand up.“I don’t have to listen to this.”

“You are a slut,” he says, his voice loud.He doesn’t care who else in this diner hears his poison words.“You fucked me.You fucked myfucking dad, Ella.And his friend.How many other guys have you fucked since I met you?”

“It’s none of your business if I’ve fucked every adult in San Esteban, Joel.”

“It is if you gave me some disease.”

I can’t believe this.He was the one screwing around behind my back, not the other way around.He was the one who made me feel like I was crazy just for wanting totalk.He was the one who lied about where he was at least once, and probably a lot more than that.

“Lose my number, asshole.”I spin on my heel and leave the diner.

I can’t fucking believe that guy.

Twenty-One

Sebastian

Tuesday night.I’m bored as fuck, and worried about Ella.Maybe Kingston was right, and we should’ve gone after her.

Hell, there’s nomaybeabout it.We definitely should’ve gone after her.

I pick up my guitar, strum a few chords.I write down an interesting melody that pops into my head.I strum a few more chords.I mean, it’s fine.Could be catchy, even, with the right rhythm behind it, the right lyrics.