How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,4
than this did. If I wanted to make a real go of being a coder, I could quit and build a career.
But I really, really didn’t want to sit at home in my apartment all day, staring at a computer screen. The thought of doing that for the rest of my life made me queasy. So maybe I wanted to keep this job for the social benefits? I glanced at Doug, who was ringing up a lady’s tampons at the counter, and thought again.
Maybe, I thought, I was just sick of being fired.
Most people saw being fired as the ultimate humiliation, a sign of failure. Not me. My dad had taught me that being fired was, in some ways, a badge of honor almost as impressive as quitting. It meant you were going your own path, bucking the system, being yourself. But I was starting to wonder about that, because lately it had begun to feel like failure.
It started raining outside, the water coming down in sheets, and Doug and I changed places, me taking the cash and him wandering the aisles, stocking and neatening the shelves. We were steadily busy, people coming in for their allergy meds or their hangover ibuprofen, their itch creams or their Sunday morning Pepto. I watched the clock. Maybe Holly, my best friend, would be around later for a coffee when I got off. If she wasn’t busy with her boyfriend, Dean. I’d known Dean in high school, and he was ridiculously hot, in a bad-boy way. Because Holly was a smart girl, she was busy with him a lot.
And then I came back to reality and looked up at the next person in line, and my day went right down the toilet.
It was Jason Carsleigh.
That tall, hot body. Those sleek, thick muscles. Those brown eyes, under gorgeous slashes of brows, framed by dark lashes. Those high cheekbones, that soft dark brown hair, that perfect mouth. He was wearing worn jeans and a hoodie with the hood pulled up, rainwater dripping from the edges, and even from over the counter I could smell him, rainwater and last night’s cologne and some kind of dirty boy-musk. My spine went to goo and my knees clenched. Jason always did this to me. Always.
He was my friend Holly’s brother, and her boyfriend Dean’s best friend. He and Dean had been the most talked-about guys at Eden High, where they’d been one year ahead of me. Dean, the bad boy. Jason, the good boy. Unlikely best friends. Everyone had known who they were. Now we were years out of high school, and because I’d struck up a friendship with Holly, I couldn’t quite avoid Jason. Though I did everything in my power to try.
Because I hated him.
Jason fucking Carsleigh.
He looked at me and his eyes went wide for a brief instant. Then they went wary. Jason knew I didn’t like him—he knew it perfectly well, since I’d made it clear. What he didn’t know was why.
Because he didn’t fucking remember.
“Hey, Megan,” he said, his voice a little throaty. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and a perfect shadow of stubble showed on his perfect jaw. I didn’t think he’d showered; in fact, he looked a little rough. As if he’d been up late last night, and now he was hung over. It made me hate him that he could be hung over and hot at the same time. It made me hate him that he’d spent last night having fun, maybe in bed with some girl. I assumed he remembered his night with her.
That thought just made me angrier. I didn’t greet him back, just looked down at what he was here to pay for, and then I paused in surprise.
“Midol?” I said to him, raising an eyebrow.
He didn’t blush or shift uncomfortably, just stared at me. “Megan,” he said again. “Ring it through.”
It made no sense. Why was he buying Midol? I knew from Holly that Jason and his fiancée, Charlotte Davenport, had broken up. They’d been together for four years, while Jason was deployed in the Marines, but it had fallen apart after he’d come home. So he wasn’t buying Midol for Charlotte. The idea of Charlotte, the world’s most perfect blonde, needing Midol, or having bodily functions at all, was absurd anyway. She probably eased her menstrual cramps with the feathers of angel wings.
Since the breakup, Jason hadn’t dated anyone else. That I knew of. Then why the hell was he buying Midol?
He was looking impatient