Maybe Someday(3)

door, then steps aside and waits for me to . . .

well, I don’t know what she’s waiting for me to

do.

She rolls her eyes and grabs my arm, pulling

me out of the doorway and further into the apart-

ment. “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you

even speak?” She begins to close the door behind

her but pauses and turns around, wide-eyed. She

holds her finger up in the air. “Wait,” she says.

22/692

“You’re not . . .” She rolls her eyes and smacks

herself in the forehead. “Oh, my God, you’re

deaf.”

Huh? What the hell is wrong with this girl? I

shake my head and start to answer her, but she

interrupts me.

“God, Bridgette,” she mumbles to herself. She

rubs her hands down her face and groans, com-

pletely ignoring the fact that I’m shaking my

head. “You’re such an insensitive bitch

sometimes.”

Wow. This girl has some serious issues in the

people-skills department. She’s sort of a bitch,

even though she’s making an effort not to be one.

Now that she thinks I’m deaf. I don’t even know

how to respond. She shakes her head as if she’s

disappointed in herself, then looks straight at me.

“I . . . HAVE . . . TO . . . GO . . . TO . . .

WORK . . . NOW!” she yells very loudly and

painfully slowly. I grimace and step back, which

should be a huge clue that I can hear her practic-

ally yelling, but she doesn’t notice. She points to

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a door at the end of the hallway. “RIDGE . . . IS .

. . IN . . . HIS . . . ROOM!”

Before I have a chance to tell her she can stop

yelling, she leaves the apartment and closes the

door behind her.

I have no idea what to think. Or what to do

now. I’m standing, soaking wet, in the middle of

an unfamiliar apartment, and the only person be-

sides Hunter and Tori whom I feel like punching

is now just a few feet away in another room. And

speaking of Ridge, why the hell did he send his

psycho Hooters girlfriend to get me? I take out

my phone and have begun to text him when his

bedroom door opens.

He walks out into the hallway with an armful

of blankets and a pillow. As soon as he makes

eye contact with me, I gasp. I hope it’s not a no-

ticeable gasp. It’s just that I’ve never actually

seen him up close before, and he’s even better-

looking from just a few feet away than he is from

across an apartment courtyard.

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes that can actu-

ally speak. I’m not sure what I mean by that. It

just seems as if he could shoot me the tiniest

glance with those dark eyes of his, and I’d know

exactly what they needed me to do. They’re pier-

cing and intense and—oh, my God, I’m staring.

The corner of his mouth tilts up in a knowing

smile as he passes me and heads straight for the

couch.

Despite his appealing and slightly innocent-

looking face, I want to yell at him for being so

deceitful. He shouldn’t have waited more than

two weeks to tell me. I would have had a chance

to plan all this out a little better. I don’t under-

stand how we could have had two weeks’ worth

of conversations without his feeling the need to

tell me that my boyfriend and my best friend

were screwing.

Ridge throws the blankets and the pillow onto

the couch.

“I’m not staying here, Ridge,” I say, attempt-

ing to stop him from wasting time with his

25/692

hospitality. I know he feels bad for me, but I

hardly know him, and I’d feel a lot more com-

fortable in a hotel room than sleeping on a

strange couch.

Then again, hotel rooms require money.

Something I don’t have on me at the moment.

Something that’s inside my purse, across the

courtyard, in an apartment with the only two

people in the world I don’t want to see right now.

Maybe a couch isn’t such a bad idea after all.

He gets the couch made up and turns around,

dropping his eyes to my soaking-wet clothes. I

look down at the puddle of water I’m creating in

the middle of his floor.

“Oh, sorry,” I mutter. My hair is matted to my

face; my shirt is now a see-through pathetic ex-

cuse for a barrier between the outside world and

my very pink, very noticeable bra. “Where’s your

bathroom?”

He nods his head toward the bathroom door.

I turn around, unzip a suitcase, and begin to

rummage through it while Ridge walks back into

26/692

his bedroom. I’m glad he doesn’t ask me ques-

tions about what happened after our conversation

earlier. I’m not in the mood to talk about it.