Addicted for Now (Addicted #2)(37)

“You have her number?” I question.

“Yeah,” he says, his lips rising. “And I have yours. Loren Hale, right? She gave me your number too, said something about how she always loses track of her phone.”

She must have been drunk. Lil doesn’t usually give out her number or mine. She said it “promotes stalking”—which clearly seems to be the case.

My blood ices over, and my hand on Lily’s shoulder suddenly feels like a weight. So he has her number, and mine. He has the ability to text us, but he hardly seems vindictive towards me, definitely not enough to threaten Lily.

He licks his lips and nods to her. “So, I was thinking you’d want to hookup later.” What? “Maybe tomorrow, around eight. Same frat house, same place. If you want to be f*cked hard, I’m your guy.”

Lily balks. “I…”

“No,” I sneer. “She’s my girlfriend, you *.”

Mason lets out a short laugh. “That’s funny.” He looks back at Lily, waiting for her response.

Am I invisible? Am I not speaking clearly? I don’t f*cking get it?! I step in front of Lily, letting go of her hand. “She’s my girlfriend. You’re never going to f*ck her.”

“I already did,” he retorts.

My jaw locks, and I clench my fingers into a fist.

“So what do you say, Lily? If I’m not enough for you, I can call up some of my buddies. I know you like that.”

The memory hits me all at once—the one I tried to suppress. And I have the sudden urge to vomit until I pass out. I can’t even talk about it. I can’t mention what happened or else I think I may explode. I may beat him until he can’t stand on two legs. And it’s not his fault for what happened. Not really. It’s mine for not stopping Lily.

For not holding her in my arms and telling her that I truly loved her. That I would be enough, and I’d quit drinking so she’d quit f*cking other guys. That’s all I had to do. Choose her before alcohol. And I picked wrong for so many years.

He tries to step towards her, and I put a hand on his chest, pushing him back. Things have changed. “She’s with me. She’s not going to f*ck you. If you can’t understand that, then go read a damn book to understand the English language.”

“And she was your girlfriend two years ago. That didn’t stop her before. In fact, you waved her towards me.”

I want to strangle my past drunken neck. Our fake relationship is coming back to haunt me. “That was different. She’s not seeing anyone else but me now. So f*ck off.”

Mason lets out another laugh. “There’s no way that girl is only with you.” He knows. He knows she has a problem. And I wonder if he sent those texts. He was thinking about her recently, didn’t he say that?

“Were you really thinking about Lily the other day, or were you just blowing smoke?”

He smiles as though I’ve given him permission to pursue her. Over my dead f*cking corpse. “I mentioned her to my friends a couple weeks ago. We were talking about the girls at Penn who give the best head. Everyone agreed she was the best cocksucker on campus.”

And I can’t help it.

I deck him. Right in the face.

It didn’t feel good. My knuckles are on fire, and Mason touches his split lip, shocked.

Lily comes up behind me and starts tugging my arm, trying to lead me to our car.

I follow her, walking backwards so he doesn’t break my sharp gaze.

And then he says, “I knew it.”

I stop. My face falls because the look he wears—it’s full of detest, but it’s the kind of hate that’s been there for a while, accumulated throughout the years. He should be pissed about that punch to the jaw, not something so deep-seated.

“You were the one who slashed our tires because we f*cked your girlfriend.” We. I cringe, never ever wanting to hear that again. We. Not I. Not me. Multiple guys.

And I may have popped a tire or two. I was drunk. I was eighteen. And I was pissed and resentful, more at myself than at anyone else. But I took it out on this guy. And I buried the memory.

“Have you been texting me?” I glare.

Mason grits his teeth.

Lily tries to drag me off again, but I stay my course.

“Have you?!” I shout. What I did—that was two years ago. But there are some things that no guy can let go. This is probably one of them.

“Bye, Lily,” Mason says, his eyes only planted on me. “We’ll hookup soon, yeah? And maybe I won’t tell anyone else what a good little slut you are.”

I shake off Lily, and I go crazy. I grab him by the face, pinching his cheeks together with one furious hand, and I shove his back over the hood of Lil’s car.

He struggles to stand up from my hold, but I pin him down, my kneecap pressing into his dick.

“You touch her, you even think about her, and I’ll have you in the ground before you can say thank you, Loren Hale. You go to the media, the press, and I will ruin you, starting with your soccer career. You don’t even know who I am, you motherf*cker.”

He spits in my face, and I throw him off the car and onto the cement.

I think he’s about to come back and tackle me, but he staggers to his feet.

I don’t give him the last word. Lily physically pushes me into the passenger seat, knowing that I’m too crazed to drive right now. And she rolls up the window while Mason begins yelling again. We can’t hear him in the car, but he smacks our hood with two fists as we pull out.