How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,56

at all. And for all my brave words when I’d told him my story at that roadside picnic table, in my panic it all felt very real, closing in on me, suffocating me. I looked at him and my body still hummed from what he’d done to me, and I knew that if I couldn’t have everything with him, I didn’t want anything.

“I have to go,” I said, grabbing my handbag. He said nothing, just watched me as I walked to the door. He had shut down, quietly and subtly in that moment of silence, and it sliced through me. Congratulations, I told myself. You did it. You hurt Jason Carsleigh’s feelings harder than he ever hurt yours.

Still I walked out, leaving him behind. I stopped in the bathroom and fixed my makeup, my hair. There was no sound from the room behind me. Jason did not come out. I looked at my face in the mirror.

For a second, I thought the fear would crush me. I couldn’t breathe.

I was the spitting image of my mother. I could have been her twin.

I took a breath. Then I left the bathroom and went down to the reception, where all of the guests were waiting.

Twenty-Four

Jason

I’d freaked her out. I’d sent her straight back into her own head, straight back into the worry and the fear. Straight to the place she didn’t want to be, offering her things she’d never said she wanted. Because I wanted them, and I was a selfish ass.

It had been so fucking intense, so wild and amazing. I hadn’t even been inside her, and it had still been the best sex I’d had in my life. The best encounter I’d ever had with a woman, period. My first blow job in five years, which she had to have figured out. Five years. And she’d given it to me without asking, like a gift. It was hot and fun and grown-up in the best possible way.

I’d pushed it. Of course I’d pushed it. I didn’t know any other thing to do in that moment, any other way to be. I’d wanted her. Not just to fuck her—I’d wanted her. I’d forgotten that the last thing she wanted out of this weekend was me.

Unless you’re fucking her, a voice inside my head reminded me.

And Megan’s voice: One weekend some sex. A blow job. That’s all.

I ran a hand through my hair and picked up my vest, buttoning it.

Charlotte had never wanted sex. Megan wanted nothing else.

And suddenly, I was pissed off. And done.

I shrugged on my jacket, checked myself in the mirror, fixed my hair. Sex usually put me in a good mood, but I was tense, my expression tight. I felt a chill snake through the heat of hurt that was squeezing my lungs. There’s a wedding reception outside, I told myself. Just do it. Easy. And then you’re done.

This was who I was, after all. Why I was here. The fake date. It was the only reason I was here.

I left Megan’s room and walked down the hall to the stairs. She was gone, likely already at the reception. Outside, the sun was high in the sky, the wind crisp from the ocean. It was only early afternoon.

As I crossed the complex toward the reception hall, I pulled out my phone and called Dean.

“Carsleigh,” Dean said when he answered. “How’s the wedding? You drunk and doing a conga yet?”

“God help me, no,” I replied.

“Jeez,” Dean said. “That bad? What’s the ex-boyfriend like?”

“About what you’d expect from a guy who makes apps and gets married in Cape Cod.”

He understood immediately. “Oh, fuck. Goatee?”

“Plus earring.”

He grunted. “Megan could do better.”

She could. Even through my anger and hurt, I knew that. I was silent for a second, and here’s how well Dean knew me: He said into the silence over the line, “Oh, man, you’re fucking her.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Jason.”

“I’m not fucking her,” I said. “That’s not what it is.”

“Hmm,” Dean said, which meant he was thinking. I’m fucking her, in guy-speak, means it’s meaningless sex; I don’t care. I was telling him that wasn’t the case, regardless of any actual fucking. “Okay,” he said, getting my drift. “So you like her.”

“It’s one-sided,” I said. “She just made that clear.”

“Maybe she’s lying.”

I stopped outside the reception hall and shifted on my feet, scratched my chin, looked up at the sky. “Okay, I’m going to tell you something,” I said. “We went to a party before I met Charlotte. Megan has been mad