Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
BELLATRIX
“Why are you so sweaty and what’s that white stuff?” Gabby pointed a long, spikey nail at my face.
I pushed past her in the hallway and made a beeline for my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. She opened it and slammed it shut again.
“Going that well, huh?”
I shot her a death stare as I tugged my black t-shirt over my head and tossed it into a random clothes pile. I really needed to start doing some laundry. I was gonna run out of shit to wear soon.
“I’m not going back there,” I huffed.
Gabby shrugged. “Then don’t go back there.”
“I have to go back there!” I threw my arms in the air, crossing the room, and started digging through a random drawer, only to realize I left most of my clean shirts at that fucker’s apartment. “You got a shirt I can borrow?”
Gabby looked at me like I’d just ask her for her firstborn child. She gave me a quick, very judgmental once-over before flicking a hand in my direction. “Not unless you plan to take a shower first.”
“Fine.” I shoved the drawer closed, knocking it off the track so that it now sat cockeyed in the dresser. I didn’t bother fixing it before stomping off towards the bathroom.
I turned the shower on, waited for the water to heat up, stripped out of the rest of my clothes, and stepped under the spray.
Most days I took my pump off first. It was waterproof but Gabby insisted the heat messed with the absorption.
I didn’t have the patience today. I just wanted to rinse off, get dressed, and sleep until I wasn’t so worked up anymore.
I could hear Gabby leaning against the other side of the door waiting for me. “I didn’t see your bike pull up,” she called out over the sound of the running water.
“I walked,” I called back, and she shoved the door open and barged inside.
“You walked all the way here? Why?”
I ran my fingers through the globs of cum in my hair—Gabby would die—and grabbed for the almost-empty bottle of shampoo by my feet. “I was pissed off.”
“At who? Yourself?”
“Yes,” I mumbled under my breath as I tried my best to rinse my irritation down the drain. Not shame. I wasn’t ashamed of anything I did. Just irritated.
“Oh. My. God…” Gabby gasped. “You like him!”
“I promise you I do not like him.” I liked parts of him. Mostly his dick. Sometimes his tongue. But not his fucking mouth. That part irritated the hell out of me.
“Okay, fine. You like fucking him then.”
“I like fucking lots of people, Gabrielle. Doesn’t make them special.”
She opened the shower stall door and grinned. “Going back for seconds and thirds and fourths makes him special,” she countered, and I flicked some water at her face. She slammed the door closed with a grunt. “Don’t take your frustrations out on me.”
“I don’t. I take them out on him.” I grinned.
“Clearly.”
I could hear her heels clanking against the tile floor before she perched herself up on the counter. Likely swiping her hand across the top and twisting her lips up at all the grime that had collected there since the last time I felt the need to wipe everything down.
I didn’t have to see her to picture it. This was how it always had been. Gabby was prim, proper, and organized… and I was utter chaos. We balanced each other out like that.
I finished running the conditioner through my hair, rinsed it clean, open the stall door, and stepped onto the fuzzy bathmat.
Black. Since the last one I had was white and I’d turned it brown the first night I came home covered in mud.
Black hid the dirt much better and kept Gabby from giving me as much shit about my hygiene habits.
“So what happened? He fuck you to sleep, then take your keys or something?” she asked.
I didn’t look at her as I tugged my towel off the doorknob. Despite what Gabby said, you could get more than one use out of a towel before throwing it in the wash. You were clean when you got out of the shower. No need to waste a dozen towels every week.
I walked past her again, plucking a sports bra off the floor as I went. This time, I was headed straight for her closet. I didn’t have to wait to see if she would follow me. The last thing she wanted was my grubby little hands all over her expensive wardrobe.
Sure enough, by the time I switched on the light, she was shoving in front of me.
“Where are your bike keys, Bellatrix?” she repeated as she fingered through her closet, searching for whatever top she was most willing to lend out and never get back.
Or burn if she did get it back—we both knew she wouldn’t chance wearing something after I was done with it.
She held out a plain black tank top that probably cost more than all my clothes put together because it had some designer’s name on the label.
I snatched the tank top out of her hand, dropped my towel onto her floor (if I left it there she would end up washing it for me), put on my bra and her shirt, and turned right back around before the rich-bitch attitude seeped into my still-damp skin.
“They’re in my room,” I told her over a shoulder as I went in search of some clean underwear and a pair of pants I’d only worn once or twice this week.
“Where?” she popped up behind me a few seconds later.
“In my pocket.” I gestured to the pile on the floor in the bathroom. “With my phone.”
“He let you keep your keys and phone?” She sounded as shocked as I was.
“Yup.”
“Why?”
Once I was fully dressed, I plopped down onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Your guess is as good as mine.”