I was no stranger to people trying to make me feel shitty about myself. Like that woman on the bus. She hadn’t even been close to the only person who’d questioned my father’s ability to parent. My mother had left when I was three. We had no money, and I wore thrift store clothes. I hadn’t gone to college. All the things that people had thrown at me over the years had never made me think less of myself.

What I’d just done…

I covered my face with my hands as I sank down onto the chair. It was still warm from Jax’s body heat, and his scent lingered even if he was long gone.

My stomach churned, and I couldn’t even muster up any pity. I didn’t deserve pity. I’d brought this on myself. I’d gone after Jax, telling myself it had been for the most innocent of purposes: to make sure he was okay. I could have let him go after he said I couldn’t do anything. It wouldn’t have made me a bad person. I could have walked away when he kissed me. Put a stop to it right away and told him that I wasn’t interested.

But I hadn’t done any of that. I hadn’t even hesitated to say he could come back to my place when he said he didn’t want to be alone. He had family at the hospital, and I’d asked him to come anyway. I’d seen them. He should’ve been with them instead of me.

The way he’d looked at me…my heart twisted painfully. I’d been so angry at him for trying to buy the bar and for kissing me, but none of that had even come close to the damage I’d done to him a few minutes ago.

Then there was the fact that I felt worse about what I’d done to Jax than I did about cheating on Billy. Sure, he’d been an ass lately, but he was my boyfriend, and he didn’t deserve what I’d done. Just because I stopped things before we had sex didn’t mean I hadn’t cheated.

Cheated.

I bolted out of the chair, barely making it into the bathroom in time. I hadn’t eaten much today, but what little I had came up. Even with my stomach empty, I didn’t feel any better. I let out a gasping sort of sob and then retched again.

I had to come clean about what happened with Jax. It was the only way I could even begin to make things right with Billy.

But first, I needed to shower, to scrub away the memory of Jax’s touch, of the way he’d made me feel. I couldn’t think about any of that though. Billy was the one who mattered.

* * *

I shivered the entire walk from the bar to the bus station but kept telling myself that if I hadn’t crossed a line with Jax, I wouldn’t have been outside when it started snowing. Billy’s place wasn’t far, at least, and if he didn’t kick me out, I could stay there tonight. I knew I wasn’t a perfect girlfriend, but I’d never done anything like this before, and I hoped that would mean something to Billy.

I could barely breathe by the time I reached his third-floor apartment, and very little of it had to do with climbing all those stairs. The elevator hadn’t worked in this building since before Billy moved in. I wasn’t going to complain today though. Whatever punishments the universe sought fit to dole out, I’d accept. I deserved every one of them.

I knocked on the door and waited. After half a minute, I knocked again.

“Pizza!”

I frowned, thinking I had to be hearing things. Maybe the woman across the hall had been waiting for a delivery and mistakenly thought I’d knocked on her door. The walls here were thin.

“The app says it’s not here yet, Ari.”

That was Billy’s voice. I’d know it anywhere.

The door opened a moment later, and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

Ariene Sward looked down at me with wide, startled eyes, and then she burst out into laughter.

“Oops.”

The smell of alcohol would’ve told me she was drunk even if she hadn’t been holding onto a bottle of whiskey. A bottle that I was certain had come from my bar.

It said something about me that I was angrier about the stolen alcohol than the fact that the half-buttoned shirt she wore – the only thing she wore – was Billy’s.

“Billy-boy, we have a problem!” She kept looking at me as she called over her shoulder, that obnoxious smirk plastered on her face.

“Ari, what are you – shit.”

I looked around her as Billy came into view. He wore a pair of faded boxers and white athletic socks, his usual post-sex clothing. I could see long, red scratches down his chest, and wondered, dispassionately, if he had matching ones on his back.

“Syll.”

“I came over to tell you that I cheated on you.” The words came out evenly, surprising me. “I didn’t fuck anyone like you obviously did, but I kissed him. And he made me come.” Why I felt the need to add that last part, I didn’t know.

A burst of giggles exploded from Ariene, but I kept looking at Billy. His face went red, and he stalked over to the door.

“What?”

“I kissed him.” I paused, then corrected myself. “Actually, he kissed me, but I didn’t stop him. And then I kissed him back.”

“It was that asshole from the bar the other night, right?”

All my guilt was gone. “You do realize how hypocritical it is of you to be angry with me when you just finished fucking her, right? Because that’s what you were doing before I got here. Fucking. And since you two have such cute little nicknames for each other, I’m guessing this isn’t the first time.”

Ariene snorted. “No, it’s not the first time. We’ve been doing it behind your back for months.”

I waited for the pain of betrayal, but it didn’t come. I’d worked myself up about what’d happened with Jax, thinking of how unfair it was to Billy and how much my betrayal would hurt him. And the entire time, he’d been balls deep in Ariene.

Well, not the entire time. I knew from experience just how quick he was.

Without meaning to, I snickered.

“What’s so funny?” Billy snapped.

My laugh was the crack in the wall keeping back everything I was feeling, and it all came rushing forward. To no real surprise, anger outweighed hurt.

“This,” I said, “this is what’s so funny. I came over here upset that I’d hurt you, and I might as well have stayed home for all you cared.”

Billy’s expression twisted into something ugly. “You can’t blame me for this, Syll.”

I shook my head. “For what I did? No, I can’t, but you screwing around on me? Yeah, that’s all on you.”

He sneered at me. “It’s not like you left me much of a choice. You couldn’t expect me to be monogamous with someone who’s so shitty in bed.”

I stared at him. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how many times since we’ve been together that you’ve actually made me come during–” I stopped and shook my head. “No. There’s no point in having this conversation. It’s clear that neither one of us want to be in this relationship anymore.”

“I should’ve dumped your ass years ago.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe you should have.”

I left before either of us could say anything else, but I could still hear Ariene laughing behind me as I headed for the stairs.

Gilly was right, I thought as I walked back outside. She’d seen what I hadn’t been able to – or maybe just what I hadn’t wanted to. I’d tell her tomorrow. I wasn’t in the mood for an I told you so, and I didn’t think I’d be able to talk her out of doing something like breaking one of his windows. That sounded pretty good at the moment, especially since, the more I thought about it, the more my gut told me this hadn’t even been Billy’s first-time cheating. Sex was the same now as it’d been when we’d first started sleeping together, so if he thought it was so bad he needed to find it somewhere else…

I was suddenly even more glad that I’d always insisted on using a condom, and not only because I was grateful no kid had been caught in the middle of this. Who knew where his dick had been.

Maybe, deep down, I’d known all along that I couldn’t trust him.

I needed a drink. Or two.

Maybe more.