has a damning case of bedhead and is buttoning his jeans. He doesn’t notice me at first, his eyes on his fingers, but I just stare at him with everything I feel—anger, frustration. Hatred.
I swallow hard. I never thought I’d see the day that I’d feel anything like that toward Brogan. Not for a second. But I don’t know any other word for this blackness clawing at my gut.
As if he suddenly senses my presence, his fingers freeze on the last button and he slowly raises his head to meet my eyes. His jaw goes slack as mine tightens.
“How much of that did you hear?” he asks.
“Enough.”
He grimaces. “Listen, it’s not what it looks like.”
“Does Mia know you’re fucking Trish?”
“She probably wouldn’t care. It’s not like she’s doing it.”
I step forward and plant both hands against his chest, shoving him hard. He stumbles back, only stopping when his shoulder hits the doorjamb. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You have everything—everything—and you’re throwing it all away on some easy lay.”
He pushes me, and I stumble back. “I have everything? Look who’s talking! You have no idea what it’s like for us mere mortals. You have money for anything you need. You have fucking NFL scouts salivating for a chance to get you on their team.”
“I’m not talking about money or football.”
He takes a step closer and sneers at me. “Oh, you want to talk girls? You sit there judging me for not being the perfect boyfriend when you could have any girl you want.”
“That’s not true.” I’m not even sure why I said it out loud. Maybe because I’m sick of pretending. Maybe because after years of feeling guilty for having so much more than my best friend in every single way, I want him to understand that he has more in the only thing that matters. He has Mia.
His lips curl into a smirk. “Right,” he says slowly. “It’s not. Because she chose me. Even when you fucked my girlfriend the first chance you got, she didn’t want you. She chose me.”
I swallow hard. “She told you?”
His nostrils flare and his face contorts in a grimace. “No. You just did.” He points to his chest. “But I knew. You two think I’m stupid or something, but I knew the second I saw you in her doorway with those flowers. I saw it all over your face and all over hers.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t touch her until after she broke up with you.”
“But you sure didn’t miss a beat when the opportunity presented itself, did you?” He puts both palms flat against my chest and shoves me.
“You don’t fucking deserve her.” I catch myself as I stumble back and charge at him, shoving him into the wall. “She doesn’t deserve someone who’s going to fuck around on her.”
“I am her fucking boyfriend, Arrow. She chose me, and she gets to decide what she does and doesn’t deserve.”
“Fine. I’ll tell her what I heard between you and Trish today, and then you can see what she thinks she deserves.”
“She chose me. And you won’t tell her, because your fucking ego couldn’t handle knowing that you’re her second choice. You want her so goddamned much, but you don’t want to be the guy you were that night. You don’t want to be the one who picks up the pieces. And if you tell her, that’s all you’ll ever be.”
I clench my fist and back up a step and then another before grabbing my keys off the end table. “Fuck you, Brogan.”
I leave the dorms and operate on autopilot. Before I have a chance to clear my head enough to think about what I’m doing, I find myself at Mia and Bailey’s apartment, my hand poised and ready to knock on the door.
I drop my hand and step away before I can knock.
The door swings open, and Bailey stands there, her coat zipped to her chin, her purse thrown over her shoulder. She startles when she sees me, then cocks her head and frowns. “Can I help you?”
“I . . . um . . .”
Bailey rolls her eyes before turning into the apartment. “Mia! Someone’s here for you.” When she turns back to me, she studies my face. “You decide what you want,” she says quietly, “and then you fight for it.”
I wonder how much she knows about what happened in October, but before I can ask or respond in any way, she pushes past me down the hall and