Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 116759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
She’d get it.
We’d get over it.
And we’d go back to the way things were before I’d messed up and dry-humped her in my bed.
The urge to search the crowded rooftop for my friend was too insistent to resist. A prickle of an ugly feeling hung over me as I glanced around.
It wasn’t guilt. Why should I feel guilty?
I was single.
My stomach knotted, however, the longer I looked and couldn’t find Lily.
“What is it? Who are you looking for?” Candice asked, sounding slightly irritated.
“Uh, one sec, yeah.” I gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll be back in a second.”
As I pushed through the crowd, I spotted January snogging Geoff, who I’d befriended on my civil engineering course in second year. Not wanting to interrupt them, I headed over to where Zac chatted with a couple of girls. I’d noted he’d been hanging out with Lily all night. I’d kept my distance because I was still getting weird vibes and didn’t want to push myself on her.
“Hey, where’s Sawyer?” I interrupted my friend’s conversation.
Zac glanced up at me, a smirk curling his mouth. “She took off with some guy.”
He might as well have shoved me toward the edge of the rooftop for how unbalanced I felt at this information. Some bloke? Lily? No way. “What do you mean?”
Zac shrugged, frowning. “What do you think I mean? She hooked up with some guy. I don’t know who he is, but they were all over each other.”
Lily? My Lily? Who had never had a one-night stand in her life? “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
I moved on instinct toward the door.
A strong hand gripped the back of my shirt, jerking me to a halt. I glanced over my shoulder to find Zac glaring at me. “What are you doing?” he bit out.
I shrugged him off. “What are you doing?”
“Stopping you from being an utter arse to Lil. She saw you snogging Candice.”
I swallowed hard. “So?”
Zac’s disgust was obvious, and I felt about two feet tall. “You know, I’ve never thought you would deliberately hurt someone, but the way you’ve strung that girl along is shitty. Let her be. Let her hook up with someone else and get over you. Because we all know Lily Sawyer deserves better than you.”
Stunned, I couldn’t speak as Zac turned his back and started chatting away to his companions like he hadn’t torn strips off me.
He was right.
Lily deserved so much better.
I should walk back across the roof and kiss Candice at midnight.
My hands fisted at my sides as an image of Lily in bed with some faceless bloke filled my mind. It made me sick. It made my blood boil and my skin flush hot.
It made my feet walk through the door and down the stairwell before I could think better of it.
LILY
Guilt swamped me as I let myself into my flat.
Alone.
Lorcan and I had made it halfway to Leven Street before my bravery fled and I started to feel nauseated by the thought of some strange bloke taking off my clothes. I’d stopped in the middle of the street, blurted out what was happening with Sebastian, and how I was so sorry, but I was upset and I couldn’t sleep with him.
Thankfully, the Irishman was a decent guy. He told me he understood. Then he’d given me his phone number and told me to call him if I ever changed my mind.
A gentleman might have walked me the rest of the way home at eleven forty-five in the evening in the middle of a city, but whatever. At least he didn’t have a shit fit at being led on. Och, he’d probably return to the party and find someone else to sleep with.
Which was exactly why I couldn’t do it.
For some stupid reason, I needed to believe the guy sleeping with me wanted to sleep with me, not just that he needed to stick his cock in the nearest available vagina.
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I slammed my flat door shut behind me. I kept seeing Sebastian kissing Candice. Was that what I was, then, that night in his bed? Was he merely turned on because I was female? Could I have been any girl in his bed, and he would have kissed me?
And why did I care?
I hated him right now!
Maybe all it was between us was physical attraction and I was the one mistaking it for something else.
I swiped at my tears and kicked off my heels. Flattening my aching soles into the cold floorboards, I braced against the wall and tried to get a hold of myself. I was not going into the new year feeling like shit over a guy.
No way!
BANG, BANG, BANG! “Lily! Are you in there?!”
Startled, I squeaked at the sound of Sebastian battering his fist against my front door. What the hell? I crossed the room and unlocked it, throwing it open.