I Love You More Than I'm Afraid (Our Forevers #2) by Rebel Hart (the first e reader .txt) 📕

I laughed. “You already have a girlfriend, and he’s not in competition for women anyway.”

“Bullshit he isn’t. He still flirts with women all the time, dances with ‘em, the whole nine. Then you think, well I’ll just chill with the bros then, but nah, he’s got all the bros chompin’ too. It pisses me off.”

“Oh,” Polly said. “I’m sorry your game has been interfered with.”

Darton put an arm around Polly. “Nah, come on baby. You know you’re the only one for me, but who likes going somewhere being the supporting-actor?”

The curtain slid aside and a head of purple hair cracked across the barrier. Its owner bolted in, attempting to shut the curtain before anyone could come after him, but he was not successful. A six and a half foot man who looked like he’d just stepped right out of a firefighter’s monthly calendar caught the curtain and pushed it aside.

“Codie,” he said with a smile. “Come on out here and dance with me.”

I watched Codie with heightened amusement. He’d come a long way since he was a skinny, scrawny guy keeping me from jumping off the deep end at that conversion camp we’d been forced into. He kept a slim figure always, but had been blessed with a better backside than most women, and puberty took its time, late blooming to give him a modelesque face with a carved jaw and perfectly wide and round eyes.

“I just got here,” Codie whined back. “I wanna hang out with my friends for a bit.”

The man reached forward and ran his hand through Codie’s shoulder length hair, a mix between its natural light-brown color, and the purple tint he’d dyed it. “I had fun last week. I’m hoping for a repeat. If you don’t like it here, we can take my private jet somewhere warm?”

Polly grunted behind me. “This is unfair.”

I set my drink to my lips and knocked what was left of it back as Codie carefully navigated the conversation with the gorgeous, and apparently rich, man. Finally, he walked off, and though there was a literal line of people hanging out past the booth waiting to talk to Codie, he slammed the curtain shut and then threw himself onto the couch between my legs, dropping his head backwards into my lap.

I combed my fingers through his hair. “Hey there, buddy.”

“I hate the outdoors,” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” Polly said. “I’m sure being an actual god and universally liked is really hard.”

“It is when you’re an introvert!” Codie yelped.

“Did you really sleep with that guy?” I asked. “I’m 100% gay and even I know that he’s a cup of coffee worth buying again.”

Codie sat up and shrugged. “I guess. He’s all muscles and charm and money. Not really what I’m looking for.”

“What?” Polly, Darton, and I said in unison.

“Who doesn’t want muscles, charm and money?” Darton asked.

“It’s fine, it’s just not a connection, you know?” He looked up at me. “I know you know.”

I rolled my eyes imagining the insanely beautiful Suli who was only ever a good time for me and nothing more because of certain flappable blondes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Codie frowned, standing up and leaning his head closer to me. “Are you drunk?”

“Not… drunk. I’ve had a few. I’m fine,” I said.

He ripped my current glass from me in spite of the fact that it was empty. “I’m cutting you off.”

“You literally just got here. Can you not be a downer?” I said. “I know my limits.”

“Did you drive?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I won’t drive home. I’ll take a taxi or something and come back in the morning. I’ve done it before.”

Codie flicked a hand through the air. “I’ll just be sober cab. It’s fine.”

“Don’t worry about it, dad.”

“Don’t give me that attitude. All it would take is for one entitled Karen to see you and this whole place would get raided and you’d go to jail, and so would all of us.”

“Oh, the party pooper arrived I see.” Suli pushed into the booth with a drink in her hand. She tried to hand it to me, but Codie yanked it from her. “Knock it off. She’s an adult. She can do what she wants.”

“She’s barely an adult,” Codie said. “And we shouldn’t be inspiring her to be lost causes like all of us.”

“Lost cause?” Polly said. “The sexiest man just offered to whisk you away in his private jet. I think you’re doing just fine.”

“Codie.” I fished the drink Suli brought me out of his hand. “I’m okay, I promise. Come on, it’s been weeks since I’ve been here. I had a long day, I just wanna relax. You’re here, you’re not gonna let me get too out of control, and that’s not my goal anyway.”

He still looked bothered, but he relaxed nonetheless. Suli came over and sat down next to me on the back of the couch. One of her hands drifted dangerously towards my inner thigh as she leaned inwards to flash me the screen of her phone.

“Your reject called me.”

I looked down at her phone and saw a missed call from an unregistered number that I’d memorized long ago as Hannah’s. In a lapse of judgment, I’d given her Suli’s number just in case of emergency. Though the two of them didn’t like one another at all, they kept track of each other because I was at the center. The fact that Hannah still even had Suli’s number was irritating enough, but the fact that she’d actually call her and make some attempt to exercise control over me was infuriating.

“She really doesn’t know how to let things go, does she?” Polly said.

Darton shook his head. “A bit cocky to do it after she was the one who threw you out. I hate people like that.”

My friends didn’t like Hannah very much, and after what she’d done and the stories I’d told them, I couldn’t blame them. I had, of course, told them