Stacey laughed. “You’re ridiculous. Can you make me some tea?”
Nick was off to do his bidding and I was left to confront Stacey. I opened my mouth to begin a long-winded lecture but ended up bursting into a fit of laughter. Stacey joined me and after about five minutes of this, I was finally able to speak again.
“How did you even do it, Stace? Did you just randomly dial his number and go ‘hey, guess what, I have the flu and Aria doesn’t have a dress?’”
She bit her lip. “Email. We are on emailing basis.”
“How?”
“His email is on the company’s website.”
I sighed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I love you, you idiot,” she said, looking at me like I was crazy. “In my defense, he wasn’t supposed to rat me out. Tell your boyfriend he owes me one.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, you know that,” I sounded way too disappointed saying those words for my own liking so I cleared my throat and added with a firmer tone, “He’s just some playboy who is too used to getting what he wants and thinks all of this is a game.”
I wasn’t sure I believed my own words by this point. He was a playboy and this was a game; there was no doubt about it and he made no efforts to hide it. But somehow along the way, I had come to believe that he was actually a decent person. I couldn’t admit this to Stacey, though. I couldn’t even admit it to myself really. The better I thought of him, the more likely it became that I would get hurt when all of this was over, and I could not consciously do that to myself.
“A playboy who is playing games and for some mysterious reason makes you happy,” Stacy said after a few minutes, as though considering how wise it was to communicate that with me.
“What do you mean?” I raised my eyebrows.
“You are happy.”
“I am not any more or any less happier than I was before this contract.”
At least, I didn’t think I was! Not that I would ever describe myself as a particularly joyful person – but it was difficult to be when paying yourself through college, working crazy hours and having to worry about taking care of your mother financially.
“Aria, you know how much I love you, but you have been kind of miserable for a year now. Since that douchebag cheated on you.”
“I have not been miserable,” I said defensively.
“You kind of have, though,” she said while looking at the floor. “I barely saw you during the day cause you buried yourself in work and at night you would just turn on the T.V. and drift into your own thoughts. Ever since Zayden started hitting on you, you joke and laugh and have fun again! It’s like he gave me the old Aria back.”
“Stacey, if it was bothering you so much, why didn’t you say anything all year?”
“No, you are taking the wrong thing out of this. I was worried about you, Aria. I didn’t know what I could do for you. Nick and I spent so much time trying to play matchmaker for you behind your back, cause we thought dating would make you have some fun, feel better. But you never had the time so we were always too afraid to bring it up. Then one day you came home and told us your new boss was flirting with you and there has been a kind of slow and awesome progress since then.”
I was stumped. Really? Really? No. No way.
“Could you maybe for a second consider the possibility that I was doing better emotionally all on my own and it had nothing to do with some man’s pretend affection?”
Hurt was bubbling up inside me and I started tearing up a little. I wasn’t sure why this was bothering me so much, but it was. If I seemed happier, Zayden had nothing to do with it, and the fact that my very best friend thought that it did made me feel sick.
“Whatever you want to tell yourself, Aria,” she sounded like she was getting just as frustrated. “All I saw was my best friend getting happier and I did what I thought was best for her. You obviously feel differently so I promise to back off. I’ll remove Zayden from my email contacts. I don’t feel well so I’m going to go lay down for a bit. Have fun at your date and call me if you need anything.”
With that said, she walked back into her room, as tears started pouring down my face. There was no way I would wear the stupid dress now.
CHAPTER 8
ZAYDEN
I had never been to the neighborhood before and was surprised to see apartments cramped together so closely.
“Ned,” I rolled down the screen of the limo I had chosen for the night. “Is this the ghetto?” I joked.
I could swear I heard a chuckle but Ned was clever enough to turn it into a cough. “No, sir. Definitely not the ghetto. This is just a college neighborhood, mostly resided by students, who are on quite a budget.”