Page 179 of Revenge Puck

Hisstupidcondo.

Hisdumbface.

Hisbullshithockey game.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think she harbored a secret attraction to him that she’s not willing to admit.Not to me and certainly not to herself.

She begins unloading the takeout, containers thudding onto the coffee table. Pad thai. Spring rolls. Stir fry vegetables. Rice. Blaire tosses a handful of fortune cookies to the center of the table. “We’re probably going to need these later.”

“What happened?”

“He opened the door in sweatpants,” she tells me, opening the rice and dumping half the container onto a plate. “He looked like total shit. Hair was a mess. Looked like he hasn’t slept in days.”

Good.

This is weighing on him, too.

“And?” My voice is thin. “Then what?”

“I forced my way inside and told him I wasn’t there for small talk. I told him you were home, crying. I told him you felt blindsided.” My best friend slides a plate in my direction, forcing me to load it with food. “He had no idea Garrett Storm told you what’s been going on, and he felt terrible.”

Good.

He should.

I nod, throat tight.

Blaire tears open a soy sauce packet with unnecessary aggression. “I may have called him a piece of shit.”

I blink at her.

“I apologized, don’t worry,” she adds quickly. “But only in a technical sense. Like—sorry for saying that out loud, not sorry for meaning it.”

I muster a smile.

“He didn’t argue,” she continues. “Which almost made it worse. He stood there, taking it.”

“What exactly did you say?”

She points her chopsticks at me. “I said, and I quote, ‘You absolute bag of crap, there are hundreds of women in this city, and you chose your teammate’s girlfriend?’”

Blaire grunts, satisfied with herself.

“Like,sir,” she goes on, incredulous all over again. “Did the dating pool dry up? Did the apps shut down? Was every other woman unavailable? No. You went straight for the one person guaranteed to torch the locker room.”

“The audacity.”

I stare down at my plate, where a lonely spring roll sits.

“He kept saying he didn’t tell you because he didn’t want to hurt you,” she says with a mocking tone, chewing with her mouth open. “As if withholding the truth was less hurtful.”

A fresh wave of emotion climbs my throat.

“He said he thought you’d hate him,” she says matter-of-factly. “That you’d look at him differently.”

“I do look at him differently,” I whisper.

Blaire nods slowly. “I know.”