Believing Lies (20 page)

Sophie nuzzled into Conner’s arms, and I could tell they were just as interested in his little story as Courtney was. Hell, even I was interested to know why he gave me the nickname.

“Sophie left their booth and came up to the bar. It was obvious she was hitting on Conner and wasn’t planning on going back to her booth anytime soon. I figured this was my opportunity to meet her blonde friend. I saw her alone in the booth, fiddling with her phone, looking so prim and proper.”

“So you call her Princess because of what she was wearing?” Courtney guessed.

Adam smiled. “Partly. I’m getting to the reason. Stick with me.” He paused and licked his lips. I didn’t know if it was intentional, but it was hot. “Despite the clothing, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” My heart rate sped up at that little tidbit of information. I glanced at my friends. The three of them looked thoroughly intrigued by the play-by-play Adam was providing. “I saw the ring, but I couldn’t help myself. Instead of turning around, I sat down—”

I cut him off, “Uninvited.”

His gaze shifted back to me, and I felt the urge to avert my eyes. “Yes, uninvited.” He turned his attention back to our friends. “She acted all high and mighty at first, as if my very presence offended her. The clothes, the snobby attitude . . . Almost instantly, I pegged her as the spoiled princess type of girl.”
Whatthefuck!

Sophie’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened to say something, but Courtney came to my defense first, “She’s nothing like that.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Adam told her.

Courtney crossed her arms over her chest. “Continue.”

He chuckled. “After I acknowledged to her that I saw her engagement ring and that I wouldn’t be hitting on her, she thawed out. We actually ended up having a very nice, yet short time together. I still thought she seemed like the princess type, just no longer like a spoiled one. Unconsciously, I called her it out loud, and it . . . fit. After that day, she made it clear that she didn’t like the little nickname, and I liked to push her buttons, so I used it every chance possible. It ended up sticking.” He briefly seemed lost in space. I wasn’t prepared for it when he looked at me and said, “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever called you by your name.”

Just once
. “Just once,” I heard being said.
Crap, I said it out loud! Way to bring up the elephant in the room
.

He looked completely lost, but it finally dawned on him that he had called me Sienna the night we slept together, right when he first turned me down. “She’s right. I did once,” he said with no emotion on his face or in his tone.

“When?” Courtney asked.

“Why?” Sophie asked immediately after.

“It was a one-time mistake,” I quickly responded for him, knowing he would know the true meaning behind my reply. Right on cue, his eyes tightened.
Screw this
. It was time to get him the hell out of here. “Not to cut story time short, boys and girls, but Courtney didn’t know that I wanted it to be a girls’ only night.” It was my turn to narrow my eyes. “And don’t you have a party to get to?” I added a little more edge to my tone than was probably necessary.

Sophie caught on fast. “Yeah, sorry boys. Gotta kick you out.”

My inner bitch wasn’t ready to be done yet. I wanted to lay it on thick. “Yeah. Real sorry, but it’d be rude of me to not honor the primary rule of a girls’ night.” I pretended to whisper as if it was a huge secret I was telling him, even putting my hand on my cheek to cup the side of my mouth. “You know what I mean, right? No boys allowed.” I shrugged. “We’ve got some margaritas to drink. It’s been a blast and all, especially your lovely trip down memory lane, but time to run along now.” I flicked my hand as if I was shooing away a pesky fly. “I’m sure there are plenty of girls at Zach’s party waiting for you.” I stared him down, one of my eyebrows lifted. “Our pizza’s getting cold, and our margaritas are getting warm.” I cocked my head once toward the door.

“Are you done with your little show now? Did that make you feel better?” Adam bit out.
He’s even sexier when he’s pissed at me. How is that possible?

“I’m not putting on a show. I’m not sure why you’re getting so bent out of shape,” I replied smoothly.

“Fine. Have it your way,
Sienna
,” he grated. “Call me when you want to stop acting like a brat.”

My eyes widened, and I gritted my teeth.

“Courtney, nice to meet you. Soph, catch you later.” Adam turned and, without a second glance, walked to the door.

I wanted to run and tell him to stay. I wanted to apologize and make everything better between us. I also wanted to shove him into the wall and kick him in the nuts. In the end, I did nothing but watch him leave.

Conner gave Sophie a quick kiss. “I better go catch up with him. I wouldn’t put it past him to drive away without me right now.” She nodded. “Enjoy your margaritas.” He practically sprinted out of the apartment after Adam.

I faced the girls. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin our night. I don’t know why I acted like that.” My body slumped down onto a barstool, and a couple of tears fell down my cheek. I wiped them away and let out a brief, hysterical sounding laugh.

“No problem, honey. I understand,” Sophie said lovingly, then put her arms around me from behind in a comforting hug.

“I don’t understand shit. But I do know that I absolutely hate seeing you upset.” Courtney’s words were blunt, yet they had a sympathetic undertone.

I didn’t want to have to explain everything, but it wasn’t fair to keep Courtney in the dark after tonight’s debacle. “Let’s eat this pizza first, then I’ll give you the 411.”

She nodded and popped open the pizza. None of us waited for plates, instead just eating straight from the box.

After Courtney was brought up to speed, her reply to the whole situation was that she was “gonna pop a cap in his ass.” I told her that, although I appreciated the sentiment, it wasn’t necessary. I explained to them that I wasn’t going to let another repeat of tonight happen again. Sophie and Conner were together, which meant that Adam and I would be around each other. My previous plan to avoid him wouldn’t be possible. I saw that now. I’d been naïve to ever think it was. I needed to just get over it, at least enough that I could be hospitable around him. To be honest, I missed his friendship more than anything, so maybe in time I could even work toward rebuilding that.

We finished the pizza, a bag of chips, and each had two large margaritas before the mix ran out. Sophie suggested doing shots with the rest of the tequila, but I put the kibosh on that idea. We all had a slight buzz going, and tomorrow we were going out. I didn’t want to be hung over two days in a row. We decided that tomorrow afternoon we would go to my uncle’s house. Sophie was complaining that we hadn’t gone swimming in her dad’s huge pool all summer, and time was running out before it would be too cold to use it. She clarified that when she said “we” she meant me and Courtney. She confessed that she used it with Conner the other day while her dad was at work. Apparently, there hadn’t been a lot of swimming going on.

We finally decided to call it a night at one o’clock in the morning. Sophie went into her room, and Courtney and I walked into mine. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sophie not only remembered to wash my new bedding but also made my bed. The icing on the cake was that she’d hung up my new curtains as well. Once again, I was reminded how much she cared about me. I really didn’t deserve her.

Courtney brought me out of my chain of thought. “Why only one pillow? Are you planning on spooning me while we lay on a single pillow, or do you have another one I can use? If we are spooning, I’m totally the big spoon, and you’re the little spoon.” She tried to use a serious tone but was unable to keep a straight face long enough to pull it off.

I was giggling at the spoon joke until the reason for her comments sunk in. Frantic, my eyes darted around the room searching for the pillow that smelled like Adam.
Why do you care? He called you a brat, and you decided to move on. Remember?
I was torn. Did I or didn’t I want the damn pillow? I really didn’t know the answer to that question.

“Is there another pillow in the hall closet?” Courtney asked, unaware of my internal freak-out.

“Yeah, but I usually have two on my bed. Sophie washed everything and made it, so I’m going to quick run to her room to see if she knows where the second one is. You can use the one on the bed.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’m going to lie down then, if you don’t mind?” She yawned as she finished speaking.

“Go to sleep. I’ll be right back.” I left my room for Sophie’s, still battling in my head about whether I would be relieved if the pillowcase was washed, or if I would be disappointed and sad to lose my one last piece of that night. I opened the door a crack, finding the light still on and her sitting cross-legged on her bed, so I walked in.

“Hey, you. I was just wondering if you were going to show up or if you were going to chicken out and go to the hall closet.” She had a sly smile on her face. My face was probably covered in shock.

“You knew?” I mumbled.

“You changed all of the bedding except for one pillowcase, which was still in the blue pillowcase from your old bedding set. Although I noticed it, I didn’t really give it too much thought until I went to strip it off, and it smelled like boy.”

I flopped down on the bed next to her, flat on my back with my hands over my eyes. She pulled my hands down.

“On a scale of one to ten, how pathetic am I? Tell me the truth,” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer to my question.

Her mouth pulled up in a half smile. “Maybe a four, but if it makes you feel better, I probably would have done the exact same thing.”

“Kind of.” I sat up. “What did you do with it?”

“Dresser,” she answered, nodding in that direction. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that I saw it lying on her dresser with no pillowcase on it, my stomach dropped. I guess I had my answer: I wanted the pillowcase.

I tried to hide my disappointment, but I knew that it had shown on my face long enough for Sophie to catch it. She looked sympathetic when she asked, “Purple or blue? It’s your choice. I have them both. And no, I didn’t wash the blue one.”

I just couldn’t reply. I couldn’t verbalize that I wanted that pillowcase more than anything else in the world at that exact moment in time. I was disappointed in myself, but more so, I was embarrassed. Whatever she saw on my face answered what my mouth refused to say.

“The blue one is under the pillow. The purple one is in the hall closet. I had a feeling which one you’d want.” She shrugged. “It’s okay to need time, so stop being so hard on yourself.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“Only to me,” she said with a smug smile.

I got off the bed and retrieved the reason for my visit. “Goodnight . . . and thanks.”

“Night to you too. Cut the lights on your way out,” she instructed, crawling under the covers and laying down.

I shut off her light, closed her door, and then pulled the pillowcase back on as I walked down the hall. Crawling into my bed, I tried to not disturb Courtney, who was snoring quietly. I laid my head on the pillow and inhaled. His scent was fading but laying directly on it, rather than cuddling it, caused it to be just as impactful. Once again, I fell asleep surrounded by the scent, but not the man.

Chapter Sixteen

I snapped the back of Sophie’s wet swimsuit top against her skin, and she let out a loud yelp.

“Karma’s a bitch, and I’m going to get you back for that one,” she threatened, pointing her finger right in my face. I bit it, which, to my delight, resulted in a second yelp from her.

After I finished laughing at my own antics, we started walking from the pool toward the back patio door of my uncle’s house. After three solid hours of swimming and sunbathing, Sophie, Courtney, and I were famished.

“AHHH! COLD! COLD!” I screamed as ice cubes and freezing liquid slid into the back of my bikini bottom. I began hopping around like an idiot, shaking my butt and pulling at my swimsuit to get rid of the chilly invaders, but my efforts were futile. The only solution was to flip the suit bottom inside out, giving Sophie and Courtney a wonderful ass shot in the process.

“Your butt’s a little red,” Sophie gloated. “I told you karma’s a bitch.”

I spun around and gave her the stink eye. “You and karma have a lot in common.”

She smirked. “Touché.”

“Let’s go eat already. I’m starved,” Courtney whined, her hands on her hips. She always got crabby and whiney when she was hungry, but I really couldn’t fault her too much since I got the same way.

“I need a new ice water since Sienna’s ass just drank mine,” Sophie said, laughing. Her laughter was completely self-satisfied.

Aiming at Sophie’s head, I forcefully threw my towel. She caught it midair, effectively thwarting my aerial assault.

We walked into my uncle’s kitchen, and I opened the fridge. I took a quick inventory before voicing two options. “Looks like it’s gonna be BLTs or ham and cheese sandwiches.”

“BLTs,” they answered in unison.

I put the lettuce and tomato on the counter, and then reached for the bacon. “Okay, who’s going to fry—?”

“Not it,” they said, one right after the other, before I could even finish my question.

“Fine,” I groaned. “But if I’m stuck with the bacon, you two get the rest ready at least.”

One small grease burn on my finger later, we were enjoying our BLTs and potato chips at the patio table while our hair dried in the sun. After lunch, we cleaned up our mess, and Sophie left a Thank You note on the counter for her dad.

By the time we got back to our apartment, we were ready to collapse from exhaustion. Knowing we were going to be staying out late tonight, we decided an hour nap would do us a world of good. The entire time we were swimming, I hadn’t thought about Adam once. But the moment I crawled into bed, the pillow reminded me.
Damn pillow!

None of us were genius enough to set an alarm, and I was the first to wake up over three hours later. I shook Courtney’s shoulders. “Wake up. We overslept. It’s already seven.”