Empire High Betrayal(35)

He placed a kiss on my forehead and unwound my arms from his waist. “Take care, kid.”

My heart wasn’t as healed as I wanted to believe. Because it felt like it just ripped down the middle as Miller walked out of the room and out of my life.

But I knew a broken heart kept beating. Mine seemed to ache all the time, but I was still here. Ow. I pressed my hand to my chest. It would eventually stop hurting. It had to.





Chapter 14


Monday

Mrs. Caldwell was humming at the stove. By the smell of cinnamon in the air, I was beginning to understand why Matt always smelled like scrumptious dessert. As much as my stomach wanted me to stay, I’d been trying to get Matt away from the dinner table for what felt like hours. Apparently Matt and Mason always did their homework sitting at the kitchen table together. It was wonderful that there was so much family time in this house. But not when I needed to tell Matt about this afternoon.

“Can we go upstairs for a bit?” I asked. The class notes Matt had brought me from school remained untouched on the table. I needed to talk to him before I could focus. God, he was going to be so mad at me.

“Someone’s anxious for alone time,” Mason said with a laugh. “I’m guessing last night went well?”

I leaned closer to Matt. “Please?” I whispered, trying to ignore Mason.

“Oh, Brooklyn,” Mrs. Caldwell said as she came back to the table carrying a pan of something with a perfectly golden crumble on top. “I meant to ask you this afternoon…but I couldn’t find you.”

Shit. I didn’t want my whereabouts to come out like this. Did she know I was with the Hunters?

“I was hoping we could do a girls’ night,” she said and started dishing out the dessert.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Maybe Friday night?” Mrs. Caldwell asked.

I glanced at Matt. He was smiling. And I was pretty sure he was just pretending to read the notes in front of him. I wondered if this was his idea or his mom’s. It didn’t matter either way. I was excited to get to know his mom better. “That sounds great,” I said.

“You can invite all your friends too. It’ll be so much fun. And it’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better.”

All my friends? The only girl friend I had was Kennedy. “Sure.” It came out as more of a question than a direct answer.

“Wonderful. About how many friends do you think you’ll invite? I’ll need a head count to figure out what we should do.”

She wanted to get to know me. And now the first thing she’d learn was that I didn’t have very many friends. I cleared my throat. “I can ask my friend Kennedy to come.”

Mrs. Caldwell smiled. “Anyone else?”

“Um…no. That’s it.”

“You know what? That’s even better. More than a handful is a crowd anyway. And maybe you boys can have James and Robert over? I feel like I haven’t seen them in ages.”

For just a second everyone was silent.

“Maybe some other night,” Mason said and scooped some of the dessert on a plate.

Wait. Did Mrs. Caldwell not know about their falling out?

Mrs. Caldwell laughed. “I feel like our fridge is overflowing. I’m used to the boys coming over for dinner at least a few nights a week. Invite them over for dinner tomorrow then.” She stood up. “I’m going to go book a few things for our girls’ night!” She looked so excited as she walked out of the kitchen.

“Your mom doesn’t know that you guys are fighting?” I asked.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Matt said.

“There is if they’re usually here all the time. What are you going to tell her when they don’t come over for dinner tomorrow?”

“That they were busy.”

“Eventually she’s going to catch on…”

“Which means we’ll never have to have an awkward conversation,” Mason said. “Just let them slowly disappear from all of our lives.”

“You can’t just delete friends from your lives.” Everyone was making this so much harder than it needed to be. It was all a huge misunderstanding. Without even realizing it, they were letting Isabella dictate their lives.

“It’s already done,” Matt said. “They wouldn’t hear me out.”

“But…”

“And James kissing you was the final straw. I’m never talking to either of them again.”

I swallowed hard. God, he was going to hate me. “Can we please go upstairs for a few minutes?” I asked.

Mason laughed. “Insatiable.”

I grabbed Matt’s hand and pulled him away from the table before Mason could make any more jokes about our sex life. By the time we reached Matt’s bedroom I practically shoved him inside. I closed the door and locked it. When I spun around, Matt’s arms were caging me in.

“You know I like when you just ask for what you want,” he whispered against my ear. “I was just waiting for you to tell me your wildest fantasies.”

My heart started racing. “In front of your brother?”

“You could have whispered all the unspeakable things you want me to do to you.” He traced his tongue along the side of my ear.