Page 8 of Forgotten Prejudice

Scratch that.

I needed to get fucking wasted. So wasted that the disgusting image of that dipshit pressing his lips to Ash’s cheek would be erased from my fucking memory.

Only that not even half a bottle of vodka seemed to do the job, and my brain was still going at a hundred miles per hour trying to figure out what I’d seen earlier today.

And if that wasn’t enough, Zoe had been a pain in my ass since she’d arrived, trying to convince me to go home with her since she was too tired to party. Fuck that, and with all due respect, fuck her. Right now, I had no plans to go home, where I’d have to face those repulsive thoughts alone. And sober.

“What the hell is wrong with you tonight,” Zoe whined, slapping my arm and then slumping her back against the couch.

Ignoring her, I took a shot that burned its way down my throat, then reached for the bottle to pour myself another.

“Seriously, Kai, you gotta cut down on the drinking.” While speaking, she reached to grab the bottle away from me, but I pushed her hand off.

“Leave me alone.” I sounded as bitter as I felt. “If you’re unhappy, go home.”

“Are you shitting me?” After I didn’t bother to answer her, she continued to push. “Are you sad because your sweet Ashy isn’t here to hold your hand?” Bringing her fists to her face, she pretended to cry and wiped fake tears, basically saying I was a crybaby.

She pissed me the fuck off.

“Screw you, Zoe.”

Dropping her hands to her sides, she stood up, stomping her foot. “You two are un-fucking-believable. Seriously. I don’t know why I’m wasting my time on you when you’re so clearly in love with him, too.”

She had every right to be angry with me right now because I was being a fucking prick, but that didn’t mean she could—hold on.

What did she just say?

“What did you say?” I asked, blinking my eyes while trying to keep focus.

“Nothing.”

Getting up, I grabbed her arms and yanked her close.

“Kai, you’re hurting me—”

“What the fuck did you just say?” I rasped.

“It was a slip of the tongue. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Angry, I frowned at her. “You said I was in love with him, too. What did you mean by that?”

Rather than answering me, Zoe pressed her lips together and diverted her eyes. She clearly didn’t mean to say what she just did, but it was too late to take her words back. Letting go of her, I crashed back on the couch. Pushing the shot glass off the table, it shattered on the floor, but I didn’t give a shit as I reached for the bottle. Drinking straight from it, I only stopped once it burned, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

The room spun around me while the loud music mixed with Zoe’s attempts to apologize. What was she even apologizing for? I didn’t know or care. I had so many questions running in my fucked-up brain right now, and none involved her.

No.

They all involved him—my best friend, who apparently kept shit tons of things away from me.

Ash

Sitting by my desk, I decided to search for Soren on Facebook. It wasn’t hard, and he was the first account to pop up after I typed his name into the search bar. Just as I expected, he was popular. Very popular. His profile picture, a photo of him leaning back against a Bentley wearing a tux, had gotten hundreds of likes and comments. Going deeper and digging up more info about him, I saw that he attended some boarding school in Switzerland instead of a regular high school and that he was currently a third-year law school student.

Well, he did mention that.

I also confirmed my earlier suspicion about his age. He turned twenty-five last May, meaning that he was seven years older than me. Well, I’d be eighteen in less than a month, so I guessed that was fine.

After drooling over his tennis photo album, I removed my eyes from my computer and bit on my nails. Will he actually call me? Soren did ask me for my number, but maybe he was just being polite after stumbling upon me. Thinking back on our meeting, I remembered what he said about my lips.