Page 57 of Not a Friend (Crescent Light #1)

Now

I shouldn’t hold out so much hope…

“ C ould you slow down?” I broke my silent treatment when Kieran downed another gin and tonic shortly after dinner.

“I’m just getting a good buzz going. Wanna make sure I’m getting the most out of Gemma’s party.”

“Yeah, well, I think you have the buzz you were looking for. Slow down.” Then, for emphasis, though he didn’t really deserve it, I added, “Please.”

I left Kieran somewhere near Michael in hopes that he would stick close to him while I attended to Gemma.

She’d hunted me down the second she had to pee and recruited her mom to assist as well. We got her into the bathroom and team-lifted her skirts while she did her business, laughing hysterically the entire time.

“I love you guys,” Gemma said as her pee filled the acoustics of the bathroom.

“I’ve never felt closer to you,” I responded in earnest.

I fulfilled my duties diligently. When toasts were made, I held up my champagne glass.

When the cake was cut, I made sure drunk guests—Kieran included—were out of the way.

I even stood in the middle of the room with the rest of the unmarried ladies when the bouquet was thrown, though I barely participated.

I stayed in the back of the small crowd and made a less-than-abysmal attempt at catching it.

Nate shot me an amused smile when he caught my eye over two of Gemma’s cousins as they wrestled over the bouquet. I flipped him the bird, to which he burst into a proper belly laugh.

I got a fresh look at just how wasted Kieran was when he hovered over my shoulder again twenty minutes later, and I nearly lost it.

“What the hell?” I hissed. “I asked you to slow down.”

He didn’t say anything; he just leaned closer to me.

“If you get sick, I’m not taking care of you. You’re on your own.”

“I wish you would take care of me.” His attempt at a hungry, sexy look only made me cringe. “You haven’t all weekend.”

Don’t make a scene, don’t make a scene, don’t make a scene.

I didn’t see him leaning in until he was giving me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Wrong. It felt wrong. “I’ll slow down. I promise.”

Apparently, promises only last an hour because when I came back from the bathroom to a crowd of line dancers, I spotted Kieran leaning against the bar top for the thousandth time that night.

The bartender slid a gin and tonic across the counter, and the second Kieran’s lips touched the glass, I finally snapped.

The final fucking straw.

Broken up or not, I got to choose what kind of behavior I accepted. And I did not accept this.

The lack of awareness, the disrespect, how flippantly he disregarded me and my boundaries, it had to stop.

No more pushing the conversation aside. No more being nice. This was going to get ugly, and it wasn’t waiting until tomorrow .

I stalked to the bar, grabbed Kieran’s hand and turned, pulling him out into the hallway, out of the reception hall.

I found a small meeting room and shoved Kieran inside. A long boardroom-style table sat in the middle of the room with high-backed rolling chairs evenly spaced around it.

This will have to do. I’ll be damned if I spend another second tonight biting my tongue.

“What?” Kieran said defensively. The sheer attitude in his voice reminded me of that of a fifteen-year-old boy getting scolded by his mother. It made my simmering blood finally reach its boiling point.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Kieran? You’ve been acting like this all weekend. I barely even recognize you.”

“Funny,” he slurred. “I could say the same about you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Everyone here knows you as a completely different person than the girl I know.”

“And? Who doesn’t change after college? If you’re looking for an apology for anything I did before I even met you, you’re not going to get one.”

“How come I’ve literally never heard about him before this weekend?” Kieran’s voice grew louder with every drunken word. He swayed where he stood. “Other than the fact that you used to be friends with ‘Grant’s brother’s-fuckin-band,’ you’ve never mentioned him.”

Technically, I had. Kieran knew Crescent Light was one of the bands I’d researched for work. He just didn’t know Crescent Light was Nate’s band.

“How many times did you fuck him?”

I reared back. “Excuse me? Why does that matter? ”

“I just would like to know how many times my girlfriend spread her legs for losers going nowhere in life.”

What the fuck?

As much as his words shocked me, it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t have to do this. I already broke up with him. He wasn’t entitled to a second of my attention. But he continued talking before I got the chance to tell him where to shove it.

“You know, I’m really starting to question your judgment, Olive. Not just for who you get hard-ons for, but your fuckin’ friends, too.”

“That’s enough . This is ridiculous.”

But he ignored me, pressing on, puffing out his chest. “I want to marry you one day. This weekend made me realize that I want all of you to myself. I don’t want to share you anymore with anybody.”

Oh, god. “It’s too late for that.”

“I’m serious.” He swallowed a belch. “I don’t want to share you. Not with that fucking nobody. Not with your dumb ass friend or her dumb ass wedding—”

A loud, humorless laugh burst out of me. “You know what? That’ll do it! We’re done here. You need to leave.”

He blinked, swaying again and gripping the back of one of the leather chairs next to him. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled.

“I’m serious. Go back to the suite and go to bed. And in the morning, pack your shit and go.”

I could see the words register in slow motion across his smug face, the cocky facade fading into the insecure little boy hiding underneath.

“You don’t mean that.”

I raised my eyebrows, having never been more serious or sure about something in my whole life .

“Oh, yes, I fucking do. You have done nothing but disrespect me and my friends this entire weekend. I understand I kept something from you, and I shouldn’t have done that, but it doesn’t excuse your behavior.

And as if that wasn’t enough, you disrespect my best friend on her wedding day?

Are you actually crazy?” I shook my head in disbelief.

“I’ll figure out how to get back to Boston on my own. I am fucking done.”

Turning on my heel, I threw open the boardroom door to find Jared leaning against the opposite wall of the hallway. Shit. The last thing I wanted was an audience, but thankfully, it was just him.

“You good?” The question was for me, but his eyes were trained over my shoulder on Kieran.

“ Christ , do you guys ever leave her the fuck alone?” Kieran pushed past me like he was going to rejoin the party.

I pressed my hands to his chest, stopping him. “I’m not letting you go back in there.”

He shook his head like a defiant toddler. “No. I’m not leaving.”

“Yeah,” Jared said, shouldering between me and Kieran like a protective brother. “You are.”

“Dude, mind your own fucking business,” Kieran slurred.

Suddenly, I was worried things might get ugly. Jared was scrappy; I wouldn’t put it past him to throw a punch if needed. But he had a European tour coming up, and he kind of needed his hands to play the drums. Not to mention, Kieran outweighed him by at least thirty pounds of solid muscle.

“Kieran, just go,” I begged.

His bleary eyes landed back on me. “Why are you being such a bitch?”

“What the fuck did you say? ”

My heart stopped at the sound of Nate’s voice. I’d been so focused, I didn’t even notice him round the corner with Martinez, and the two were now closing in on where Jared and I stood in Kieran’s way.

Nate’s steps didn’t slow. He pressed closer until Jared abandoned his hand on Kieran’s chest and placed it against Nate’s instead.

“What did you just say to her?”

Nate’s face was a mix of fury, challenge, and dismay. Like he was daring Kieran to repeat the word while simultaneously refusing to believe he was dumb enough to say it in the first place.

“Jesus Christ,” Kieran groaned, rolling his eyes as he slumped against the wall. “This fucking guy.” The fact that he hadn’t passed out yet was a miracle.

Jared tried his best to wedge between Kieran and Nate, but Nate didn’t even see him, wild eyes trained on Kieran like he was using all the willpower in his body to not come unglued.

“Do you have any idea how good you have it?” he spat. “Any idea how lucky you are? Or are you just stupid?”

I was stunned silent, even as I balanced Kieran’s unsteady body.

“Martinez,” Jared called, both hands now on Nate’s chest, urging him backward, “jump in anytime here.”

With a shake of his head, Martinez snapped into action, wrapping a tattooed arm around Nate’s middle and tugging him back with ease.

Kieran’s eyes slipped closed as he struggled to stay upright. I caught him under the arms just as he tumbled forward, but was saved by Jared, who pulled him upright and looped one of Kieran’s arms over his neck.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to my friends, mortified by the spectacle.

“Are you okay?” It was Nate, ignoring Martinez’s hold as his concerned eyes turned from Kieran to me.

I nodded .

“We need to get him out of here,” Jared grunted under Kieran’s weight.

Releasing Nate, Martinez crossed to Kieran’s other side and mirrored Jared, hooking an arm around his shoulders. “Olive, do you have the key to your suite?”

“It should be in his wallet.”

Nate’s eyes were a hot brand on me as I stepped closer and fished Kieran’s wallet out of his back pocket. I didn’t miss the way Nate positioned himself closer, just in case Kieran did anything stupid. Well, stupider.

After retrieving the key and returning the wallet to Kieran’s pocket, I wordlessly led Jared and Martinez toward the exit.

“We got it,” Martinez called after me.