“Maybe it’s best if you just rip the Band-Aid off. What can really happen with Mom and Dad around and whoever the fuck else they invited over. Probably half the neighborhood. You’ll be safe from any awkward interactions or conversations,” he says and I make my way out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedroom I share with my fiancé. Parker was eight years older than me and there were definitely times that I felt our age gap. Like the fact that he owns his own house, invests in the stock market and knows the difference between an IRA and a 401k. (I think he has both.) He was in a much different phase in his life but I never felt like he treated me like I was that much younger. There could be an air of condescension in age gap relationships sometimes without even trying to and I never felt that with Parker.

Unlike with Jacob who told me that I’d understand why we couldn’t be together when I got older.

As if love was something I didn’t understand at nineteen.

I push those thoughts out of my head as I stare into my closet wondering what I should wear tonight knowing that I was going to see Jacob Price tonight for the first time since I was sobbing into his arms begging him not to break us. Break me. The humiliation washes over me for the millionth time.

“Fine. But you better not leave my side, Mase, I mean it.” I’m not sure if Jacob knows that Mason knows about our affair, but I do know that Mason could become a little less polite about Jacob’s presence and his intentions especially after a few drinks.

“I got you. Mom says be there around eight.”

I’m just getting out of the shower when my doorbell begins ringing nonstop like someone is pressing it over and over again. “What the fuck?” I yell, wondering who in God’s name is showing up to my house unannounced and ringing my doorbell like it’s an emergency. I look down at my phone and roll my eyes when I see I have three missed calls from Chloe. I move swiftly down the stairs, keeping the towel wrapped around me tightly before I open the door. “Seriously?”

“Jesus, can’t you hear?” Chloe steps in with a bottle of champagne in one hand and her leather jacket and clutch tucked under her other arm.

Her shoulder-length blonde hair had that sexy tousled look like she’d just rolled out of bed and as usual she had on a full face of makeup complete with lashes and bright red lipstick. She was wearing a two-piece cropped black short-sleeved top and a black skirt that fell to just below her knees with her favorite open toe Givenchy heels that wrap around the ankle. Which leads me to believe that her and Mason are probably trying to go into the city later. Count me in. The less I’m around Jacob the better.