My stomach rolled with a little bit of excitement as Zoey, Callie and I all get ready for the party at Drew’s frat house that we had all planned to go to together. Parties had always been my kind of scene, but since moving here to go to school, I hadn’t been to a single one. I had been doing so well with keeping myself busy, that I hadn’t been trying to fill that empty void that had seemed to be hanging around in my chest for awhile.
“So, is lover boy coming tonight?” Zoey asked, plopping down on the floor next to me where I was running a flat iron through my hair.
“Lover boy, really Zoey?” Callie chimed in. “Justin is far from being a lover boy, more like a bad boy to have fun with. Right, Della?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders and pulled out my makeup bag. “Lately things have been a little different between the two of us. He hasn’t been joking around as much, I don’t think he would ever really be able to stop, but we’ve been having actual conversations. Things are different.”
“Different in a good way or what? Because I know Nash is single and hot on your ass right now. Are you stringing two boys along Miss Della?”
I rolled my eyes at Callie and swiped lip-gloss across my lips, puckering them in the mirror before responding. “Different in a good way. And I’m not stringing them along. At least I don’t think I am.” After Nash had left the other night, he ended up calling me, and we made plans for the next day. It felt like more of a date this time around, than just a friend’s hang out.
Strangely, Nick and Steve had been absent from the house when I showed up, and it had actually been clean. Nash fixed me dinner and we even sat at their dining room table, aka a card table with a table cloth covering it. It had been decked out in votive candles and a vase of roses that he had given me at the end of the night.
He was trying, I would give him that, but I was confused on where my relationship with Justin really stood. I felt guilty for being with Nash like that, even though I hadn’t considered it as a date. I knew I had feelings for the both of them, but they were jumbled up in my head right now and I wasn’t sure what I felt for whom.
“Well, my vote is for Nash. I know we’re still young and all, but Nash is a way better choice. You don’t have to worry about him with other girls-” Zoey jabbed Callie sharply in the side to cut her off and I looked between the two of them, both looking extremely guilty.
“Ok, what are you two not telling me?” I crossed my arms, giving them both that look. You know the one where your best friends are supposed to tell you everything, no matter what. It was some sort of code or something.
“It’s not that big of a deal, really,” Zoey said with a loud sigh. “The gossip queen over here heard someone in one of her classes bragging about how they hooked up with Justin. So of course she had to stick her nose into the conversation.”
“Please, I wasn’t sticking my nose in anything. I was looking out for our girl.” I gave Callie a small smile, even though I just wanted to smack her upside the head because she hadn’t told me sooner. Sure, rumors were rumors, but sometimes there was some truth to them.
“She said that she and Justin hooked up about a week ago,” she finished quietly. “I argued that Justin was dating you, and why exactly would he need to turn to someone as skanky looking as her. I think she got a little offended, but still stuck to her story. Apparently, it was on one of his nights off from the restaurant and she met up with him at some bar.”
“Well, that’s…interesting.” What else was I supposed to say? Justin and I had never really said that we were officially a couple, but I thought we had an understanding that we weren’t seeing other people.
Honestly, I felt a little hurt. No, I wasn’t being honest with myself at all. I felt all kinds of hurt, but I put on my brave face and pushed it out of my head, something I had learned to do over the years and was an expert at.
“That’s all you have to say? Really?” Zoey smashed her lips into a straight line, narrowing her eyes at me. “Because the Della I know is one tough bitch and wouldn’t put up with that kind of shit. You need to confront him or just drop him. He obviously doesn’t deserve you if it’s true. You know I’m not a fan of Nash, but maybe you should give him a chance.”