Until tonight.

“Come off it, Nick,” I said, pushing him away.

“I don’t get you, Audrey,” he said, shaking his head. “I always thought we had something special.”

“We do. We have a really special friendship, and—”

“I love you.”

I blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I love you,” he repeated, reaching a clumsy hand for me.

“Nick, no,” I said gently, intercepting his reach. “You don’t mean that.”

His handsome face contorted and he snatched his hand out of my grasp. “Who are you to tell me what I mean? Seriously, Audrey, who the fuck are you?”

“Come on, Nicky,” I said lightly. “You think after all these years that I don’t know you better than you know yourself?”

“Fuck you,” he said, his voice growing loud. “You always want to control everything, including how everyone else behaves. News flash: you can’t fucking curate other people. You can’t just play with us like we’re fucking dolls.”

I sucked in my breath. “Nick, you’re drunk.”

“That doesn’t change shit. And you know the worst part? I still love you even though you’re a manipulative, image-obsessed bitch. I tried to forget you, okay? I dated other women, and then you moved here and fucked me up all over again. Fuck you. I love you. Fuck you.”

“I think you should leave now,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering.

“You don’t want to hear it tonight, that’s fine. But, Audrey—”

“No,” I said. “Nick, it’s not like that. Okay? I enjoy spending time with you, but I don’t love you like that. And I’m not going to.”

“You loved me once,” he insisted, shaking his head. “You’ll love me again.”

“Nick, please. Do me a favor. Go home and sleep it off, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

Nick’s expression turned hard and he sneered, “Sure. Whatever Audrey Miller wants, Audrey Miller gets, right?”

“Nick—”

But he was already slamming my front door.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN AUDREY

Manipulative bitch.

I couldn’t stop obsessing over Nick’s insults. In all the years I’d known him, through all our ups and downs and stupid fights, he had never spoken to me so harshly, not even that Halloween. I wanted to believe that he was just drunk and lashing out, but what if there was more to it? What if that was how Nick really felt about me, deep down?

What if there was a bit of truth to it?

I was still thinking about it the next night as I returned to the apartment. Max had disapproved, insisting that I could work at his place, but I’d needed the quiet and the space. I hadn’t told Max about the incident with Nick—I mean, how would I even begin to explain my complicated relationship with my ex-boyfriend to my new boyfriend?—and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to give him cause to wonder whether I really was a “manipulative bitch.”

I was almost to the building when I suddenly remembered Cat wanted me to join her for trivia. I’d meant to do so, I really had. It didn’t take some sort of mentalist to realize Cat was pissed that I’d brought Max to the engagement party the other week, and so I’d promised myself I would make more time for her. Which I would, but not that night. I absolutely needed to get some work done, and besides, I had zero interest in spending another evening with Cat’s terminally boring friends.