Chapter 3
The room went awkwardly quiet.
Someone shoved Ethan hard enough that he finally pulled away from her.
A little more alert now, he saw me and seemed to sober up instantly. He hurried over to sit beside me.
“When… when did you get here?”
Instead of answering, I asked, “Made a new friend? Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
He glanced uneasily at the girl. “This is Lily Parker. She’s our new intern.”
One of his drunk friends chimed in. “Lily’s our favorite. We game together all the time. She’s the only girl in our group chat!”
Lily kept smiling.
“Stop teasing me, you guys.”
Group chat?
Suddenly, I understood. Ethan had a chat with his buddies. He’d always said it was their private space and that girls wouldn’t fit in.
Apparently, it was just me who didn’t fit.
Ethan shot his friend a warning look, but the guy was too drunk to catch it. He kept trying to liven things up.
“Come on, Ethan. Now that Emma’s here, you don’t have to worry about getting yelled at for coming home late. Let’s play something! She hardly ever hangs out with us!”
“Yeah, come on! Let’s all play!”
I’d never liked noisy gatherings, and I had pretty specific interests. I rarely joined Ethan and his friends.
Ethan glanced at me. For once, I agreed without hesitation.
“Sure. I’m already here.”
It was a simple game of truth or dare. Ethan lost the first round.
For once, he looked guilty. After a moment, he said, “Dare.”
His friend hooted. “Then take out your phone and show us who you’ve been messaging the most!”
Ethan visibly relaxed. He pulled out his phone and swiped a couple of times.
“My girlfriend, obviously.”
Before he could put it away, I caught his hand.
He didn’t panic. He confidently passed me the phone, even managing a smile.
“What, you don’t believe me? Look all you want.”
Calmly, I opened Snapchat, went into the privacy settings, and found his blocked contacts…
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the panic creep into Ethan’s gaze. His jaw tightened.
I hadn’t expected my recent research to come in handy so soon.
There was only one person on the list.
Her profile picture was a selfie. I opened it. Sure enough, it was everyone’s favorite girl.
Ethan had saved her as “Sweet Lil.”
All right.
Let’s see just how sweet she was.
I scrolled through their saved messages. There seemed to be no end.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Whatever you buy me, of course.”
“Want to game?”
“After work?”
“Duo queue?”
“Sure. Ten tonight. Don’t be late.”
“Oh my God, boss, you’re seriously so good at this!”
“I’m so stupid. I keep messing everything up.”
“I don’t really have any friends. You’re the only one who’s good to me.”
“I just want to stay quietly by your side. I won’t get in your way.”
I returned to the main screen and searched for my own name.
“Emma Hayes.” No affection. Nothing special. Just my name sitting there by itself.
And beside it was the little icon showing he’d muted my notifications.