I freeze in place, scanning his navy blue, cotton pants, shirtless with abs that make mine look like child’s play. He’s going to take a shower in the communal bathroom. And I’ve been more or less avoiding him since the premiere, when he confessed to not loving Rose.
“Morning, beautiful,” he banters like nothing has changed between us. He saunters to the bathroom and holds open the door for me. “After you.”
Screw the shower.
I walk to the stairs with flexed arms and rigid shoulders.
“Lo,” he calls out, sounding conflicted.
I stop on the first step and look back. He stands in the bathroom door, but he offers not a single extra word for me, not I’m sorry or you were right or I do love her.
I shake my head at him and then descend the staircase. Only after I enter the kitchen and start the coffee pot do I finally hear the pipes groan through the walls, the shower starting.
“What are you doing up?”
I jump at Rose’s cold voice, the blue coffee mug almost tumbling out of my hands. I take a deep breath. “Jesus Christ, don’t sneak up on me like that,” I whisper, leaning my back against the counters.
“Please, if I announced my entrance in the room, you’d call me the Queen Bitch. If anything, I’m doing you a favor. You need new material.”
She retrieves a red mug out of the cabinet beside my head, already showered and wearing a black dress with a gold necklace.
“Great,” I say, too early to have a verbal battle with her.
She waits impatiently for the coffee to brew, her high-heeled foot tapping the floorboards. “He’s not perfect, you know,” she says.
My jaw hurts from clenching, I realize. Now I really want this stupid machine to hurry up. “You don’t say,” I mutter, both our gazes glued to the coffee that drips too slowly.
“Connor feels horribly,” she adds.
My stomach tightens. “Wow, Connor Cobalt can feel?” I quip.
“I thought his insides were all IP addresses and router cables.” I cringe; the insult stings me worse than I thought it would.
For some reason, Rose doesn’t feed into my dry sarcasm today. “You’re his best friend,” she emphasizes, now staring at me while I avoid her piercing eyes.
“I thought his best friend is his therapist.”
“He was,” Rose says, “before he met you. And what Connor sees in you, I have no idea. Hanging out with you for more than five minutes is like lying on a bed of nails.”
“Likewise,” I tell her. I finally rotate, actually seeing the way her face has softened, not as severe, defensive or on guard. She’s trying to be real with me. “Did Connor ask you to come patch things up for him? He got you to do his dirty work?”
She glares. “I’m not Connor’s bitch,” she snaps. “I do what I want to do. You want to know the truth? He told me to stay out of his relationship with you because he’s afraid I’ll do more harm than good. He’s so scared to lose you, and you can’t see it because Connor won’t let you.”
I process everything she says. “Why is that?”
“He enjoys acting like he’s invincible. It’s infuriating, but we all have our faults, even him.”
I put him on a pedestal above everyone, above my own brother. I thought there was no fucking way Connor Cobalt would hurt me. He was designed to be there for all of us. He made me feel worthy of love even if he never truly loved me.
“Our whole friendship feels like a lie,” I tell her.
“It’s not,” she says. “I’ve known him since I was fourteen, Loren. I’ve seen his superficial friendships and the ones he creates to further himself in life. You’re not one of those. He’s more himself with you than he usually is. You have to believe that.”
“Why are you sticking up for him?” I ask. “He doesn’t even love you, Rose.” This time, I think she’ll have a different reaction to the words, no longer drunk off champagne.
But her expression remains exactly the same. “He’s incredibly intelligent,” she says, “but that comes with a few quirks. This is one of those that I’m okay with. I don’t need him to love me because it’s not as though he’ll ever love another woman. Not if he doesn’t believe in it.”
My headache pounds. “Sometimes I’m glad I’m not as smart as you two.” I open a nearby drawer and pull out a bottle of Advil and swallow a couple pills without water. They lodge in my throat before sliding down.