#Selfie (Hashtag Series Book 4) (31 page)

Braeden answered, “She took the selfie of us off my phone. I stupidly left my phone on the table at Screamerz and went to piss. You went through my phone, didn’t you, Missy?”

“I saw the way you looked at her. The way you watched her dancing with Trent. I know that expression on your face. The one of interest. It made me curious.” She shrugged. “I really didn’t expect to find what I did.”

“So why not say anything? Why not confront us?” I asked.

“Because I wanted to see how long you’d lie to me. I wanted to see how long you’d string along Trent.” She laughed, a hollow sound. “Two men that were both originally for me. You just couldn’t stand it, could you, Ivy? You couldn’t stand to be second best.”

“Watch your mouth,” Braeden snarled.

I touched his side to let him know it was okay.

“I never felt like second best,” I replied honestly. “I felt like third best.”

Braeden jerked, and Missy’s eyes shot to me. “What?” she asked.

I smiled. “Are you kidding? You’re so gorgeous you could be a Victoria Secret’s model. And Rimmel, well, she’s so quirky and unconventionally beautiful that she draws eyes whether she wants to admit it or not. I’m the plain one. The one who had to try the hardest to look the part. I never fit in with you two. I tried so hard.”

I felt Braeden’s eyes on me. He’d completely turned his back on Missy and was staring at me.

“Baby, is that true?”

I nodded. “It’s no big deal. I was fine with it.” Then I decided to just lay it all out there. “Okay, maybe not fine with it. It’s the reason I clung so hard to Rimmel when Romeo first started showing interest in her. Not because I wanted Romeo, but because I didn’t want to be left behind.”

“Ivy,” Braeden whispered, his voice heavy. “No one’s ever gonna leave you behind.”

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I didn’t realize how weighed down those feelings made me. Now that I spoke the truth, I felt lighter than before. Why did so much have to happen to get me to finally let some of it go?

“Listen to me,” he demanded and tilted up my head so he could stare into my eyes. “You are
not
second best. Or third best. You aren’t plain. You’re fucking perfect. You’re number one’s Mom.”

I laughed. “What does that mean?”

He smiled. “It means when people look up
number one
in the dictionary, there’s a picture of you with a caption that says:
this girl set the standard for number one
.”

I giggled and glanced away.

He pulled me back. “Look at me.”

When Braeden talked, I listened.

It was something I was gonna have to work on.

“You’re the kind of girl that people leave others behind for. If your so-called friend can’t see that, then she’s not worthy. You sure as hell got my attention.”

There was a sharp sound behind us, the loud slamming of a door.

It slammed so hard, the walls rattled.

I jerked back, and Braeden reacted instinctually, spinning around and tucking me behind him.

Missy was gone.

She stormed out of the room and practically ripped the door off in the process.

Braeden and I were left standing here alone. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I’m thinking she didn’t like the things I said to you?”

I’d waited my entire life for someone to say those things to me—and for me to let myself believe them—but I never wanted my gain to be someone else’s pain.

“I should go find her.” I wiped at my eyes.

“Hells no.”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you forgetting what that damn she-devil did to you? To Rimmel and Romeo?”

I deflated like a balloon stabbed with a pair of scissors. No. I didn’t forget. I’d probably wear the scars of this betrayal for a very long time. Yet some habits were hard to break, and it was ingrained in me to not want my friends to hurt.

Though, the truth was after this morning, it was painfully clear Missy wasn’t really my friend.

I wasn’t sure she ever was.

Braeden

How do you deal when you find out your girl was assaulted, then basically bullied by her best friend?

You go out for pancakes.

Let me be clear. This was not my idea. I wanted to skip. Hell, we were already late. But the second we stepped out of Missy’s room, my phone blew up. Apparently, Rimmel had been texting and calling Ivy to no avail.

She thought we were dead.

Or at the very least on the side of the road. She told me she wasn’t ready to attend her brother’s funeral and she never would be.

Ivy heard her shrieking into my ear and relieved me of the phone. I certainly didn’t put up a fight to give it to her.

Next thing I knew, we were on our way for pancakes.

“Really, Blondie?” I asked when I opened up the passenger door of my truck for her. She didn’t need help, but I helped her up anyway. By palming her ass and giving her a boost.

I liked touching her ass.

It was my happy place.

“I think Rim would understand if we bailed,” I finished once I was in the driver’s seat. “You’ve had a rough morning. Hell, a rough couple weeks.”

“We have to tell them,” she replied. I could hear the anxiety and sadness in her voice. It pissed me off. I didn’t want to see her hurt like this. She cleared her throat. “The sooner the better. We might as well do it over coffee and sugar. I definitely need something covered in syrup. I think I might be in shock.”

I turned sideways in the seat and faced her.

“I feel like I don’t know her at all…” she whispered. “It’s like the person I thought I knew, the one I was best friends with for years, was just a façade.”

“I’m sorry I just sprang it on you like that this morning.” I reached for her hand and entwined our fingers. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was afraid if I just told you, you might not believe me.”

“It’s definitely unbelievable,” she murmured, staring at our linked hands. “But I know you wouldn’t say something like that unless it were true.”

I lifted our hands and kissed hers.

“I know why she did what she did to me, even if it was totally off the deep end.” She stared out the window to collect her thoughts. “But I don’t understand all the notifications. All the drama she fueled between Romeo and Rimmel. I mean, she leaked that whole thing about the plagiarism. Rim almost got kicked out of school.”

“She’s done some really shitty things to a lot of people the past couple years,” I agreed.

“Rimmel never did anything to her. I just don’t understand why she does this. Any of it.”

I turned in the seat and started up the truck. I held her hand as we drove; the ride to the diner wasn’t a long one. I didn’t know the answer to Ivy’s questions. Hell, I wondered them myself. But the truth was sometimes people just did shitty stuff. I’d known that from a very early age.

Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason. Sometimes they do it because they can.

If there was one thing I learned throughout my life, it was people don’t do things because of other people; they do them because of what they get out of it. They do it for the way it makes them feel.

Once we were parked and the engine was off, I got out, tugging her across the seat behind me. When I was on the ground, I reached in for Ivy and lifted her out. I set her close and kissed the tip of her nose on impulse.

“I don’t think what Missy did was about you. Or Rimmel. Or any of the people she outed. I think it was all about her.”

We walked hand in hand toward the diner, until Ivy froze in her steps.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, skimming the area around us, looking for some kind of threat.

She made a sound of panic.

“Ivy?” My heart was starting to beat faster.

“I’m still wearing your shirt!” she hissed.

“Is that all, woman? Please.” I started walking again. She refused to budge. I turned back and lifted an eyebrow. “What now?”

She stepped up close and whispered dramatically, “I’m not wearing a bra either!”

I matched her tone to whisper back, “Good thing the girls are perky!”

“Braeden!” She gasped.

I threw back my head and laughed. “C’mon. I’m so hungry I could eat the rotten end of a pig.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s disgusting!” she burst out as I towed her along behind me.

“Aw, baby. That hurts my feelings.”

She made a rude noise, and I grinned. I opened the door to the diner, and she walked in first. I had to hold back a smile when she crossed her arms over her unleashed girls.

This chick was fucking hilarious.

Rimmel waved wildly from a booth near the window. Ivy hurried to the table and slid in across from Romeo and Rimmel. I followed with a lot less hurry in my step and slid in right next to Ivy.

Romeo looked at Ivy, then at me. We exchanged a look. He held out his fist to pound it out. I obliged.

“About damn time,” he grunted. Then he glanced at Rimmel, who had her hair piled on the top of her head and a pencil sticking out of the mess. “Can we order now, smalls? I’m so hungry I could eat the ass out of a skunk.”

Ivy and Rimmel both made gagging sounds.

“Good one,” I congratulated him.

The waitress came and we all ordered pancakes. I ordered some eggs and bacon, too. So did Rome. And juice. Ivy got coffee. When the waitress walked away, I saw Romeo looking at my girl. My eyes narrowed.

“I assume she’s been crying because of the mini-porn you two put on that the Boss blasted out?”

Rimmel smacked him. “Seriously? You couldn’t have worded that nicer?”

He shrugged. I wasn’t mad at him. Hell, there was no nice way to word what the hell Missy had done.

“You’re never gonna believe it,” Ivy said wearily. I draped an arm across her shoulders and moved closer.

“It affects you guys, too.” I directed the words to Rome. His gaze sharpened.

“Braeden figured out who the BuzzBoss is,” Ivy announced. “It’s Missy.”

The name flat-lined the conversation. It took a few minutes for what Ivy said to actually sink in. Once it had, the many questions started.

Our coffee and juices came. Ivy barely touched hers because she was so busy talking. Then our hotcakes came. I’d plowed through half my plate when I noticed she’d not touched hers.

She was still talking. She and Rimmel were being a bunch of women and analyzing every single thing Missy had ever done and said.

Frankly, it was giving me indigestion.

I dropped my hand across her thigh. Her sentence faltered and she looked down. “Food’s getting cold.”

“I’m not as hungry as I thought.”

I grunted. “It’s because you’re still yapping about Missy. Let’s give it a rest, huh?” I directed my last sentence to the entire table. “You’ve been through enough the past twenty-four hours. Take a breather.”

“Did something else happen?” Rimmel asked, pausing mid-bite.

Beneath my hand, Ivy’s thigh clenched. I gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Nah, what Missy put her through was enough.”

Rimmel nodded and glanced down at her plate. She was upset, too. Betrayed and sad. I couldn’t blame her, and it pissed me off all over again.

How could the two women I cared about most—besides my mom, of course—have been hurt so badly?

Rimmel started talking about Prada and the funny shit she did this morning before she and Rome left for breakfast, and Ivy was totally drawn in. I never thought I’d be thankful for that little rat, but here I was… thankful.

Romeo leaned across the table. “What else aren’t you saying?”

I glanced at the girls. “Later, okay?”

Reluctantly, he nodded. We left the girls to their conversation and started our own about the scrimmage last night. I was totally paying attention to our convo, but it didn’t stop me from noticing when Ivy picked up her fork and actually started eating.

I finished off my plate of eggs and bacon and was making a damn good dent in the stack of pancakes in front of me when a change came over Romeo.

I glanced up at him.

He was staring at something off behind me. Something over in the direction of the door. “What’s going on?” I asked, starting to turn around.

Romeo caught my arm and shook his head. “B…”

Something was wrong. I knew it instantly.

He blinked and jerked his eyes away, back to me. “Keep it together, okay?”

What the fuck was he talking about?

I was beyond pissed about Missy, but I wasn’t about to lose my shit right here in the diner.

“I’m fine,” I replied.

Romeo’s eyes drifted back behind our table once more. It was almost like he’d seen a ghost. I yanked my arm out of his grip and started to turn around.

Before I could, the solid wall of someone approaching our table got in my way. The feeling of being stung by an angry bee came over me.

Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

The man stopped beside our booth. He looked a lot like I remembered. Except he didn’t seem quite as big.

My fork clattered onto the table as I stared. The man’s dark eyes studied every inch of me like he’d never seen me before.

Beneath the table, my hands clenched into fists.

“I realize this is rather sudden,” he spoke.

“Sudden?” I scoffed. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Braeden?” Ivy said, leaning in and tucking her arm around mine. She could probably feel the tension in my body and it was probably freaking her out.

She should be freaked out.

I fucking was.

“Who is that?” she whispered.

“Ah, you must be the girlfriend.” The man smiled, his eyes now roaming every inch of my girl.

I jolted up out of the booth so fast he took two stumbling steps back. I stood so my body was blocking all view of Ivy and crossed my arms.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I growled. How dare this S.O.B look at Ivy?

“You wouldn’t answer my calls or any of my messages,” he said, calm. “I’ve been in town a while, waiting… I know you eat here every Sunday, so I decided if you wouldn’t come to me, I’d just come to you.”

“Have you been watching me?” So many emotions warred within me. So many memories.

Almost every single one was bad.

“I just want to talk to you, son.”

“Son?” Rimmel and Ivy gasped at once.

“That’s right,” he answered, trying to look around me again. He couldn’t see Ivy so he glanced at Rimmel instead.

“Yes, son. I’m Braeden’s father.”