I Love You More Than I'm Afraid (Our Forevers #2), Rebel Hart [best adventure books to read .txt] 📗

needed working on, the most popular of which was the lunch room. Other than the couple of hours a day when the seniors had to make themselves scarce so that the other grades could come in for lunch, depending on schedules, a senior could camp out in the lunchroom all day long.

That was what Tristan and I intended to do.

“So check this out,” Tristan said as he sat down across from me at the corner table I’d picked out. “I’ve got…” He reached into a paper bag he had and started pulling out items one by one. “Egg white and turkey bacon sandwiches for breakfast.” He slid one over to me and kept one in front of himself and then fished back into the bag. “Those cool, bento things my step-mom has been into making ever since her and my dad got back from Japan, for lunch.” He stacked the two containers on top of one another next to the bag. “And…” He started unloading an entire convenience store’s worth of drinks—coffee, juice, tea, milk, water, and soda. “Uh, I wasn’t sure what we would want to drink.”

“So you got all of the drinks?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I figured this way we don’t have any trouble choosing, and whatever we don’t drink, we can save for Aria and Ardennnnnnn… but fuck Arden!” He did a fist bump in solidarity and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You don’t have to do that, you know? I know you two get along,” I said. “Whenever I’m not around, you two are buddy-buddy like there’s not a care in the world.”

“Well, yeah. I’m not gonna lie, I think Arden’s pretty great. She’s Aria’s best friend after all, plus she’s super chill and down to earth. There aren’t many people like th—” Tristan must have caught the expression on my face, because he stopped mid-sentence. “But fuck her anyway.”

I unwrapped my breakfast sandwich and bit into it, surprised at how delicious it tasted for the fact that it was turkey, or in my opinion fake bacon. “Wow! It tastes real.” I had a terrible tendency to eat my feelings, but if I gained even a pound of weight, my mom went on about it non-stop, so I was on a diet until I’d lost enough weight to gain some without hearing her gripe. “It’s so good. Did you buy it?”

“Aria made them,” Tristan replied, and suddenly the sandwich tasted awful.

“Oh.” I set the sandwich down, but tried not to let on too heavily that knowing that she’d made it ruined them for me. “How did she come to cook us breakfast?”

“Her mom had to work last night, so I was at her place. I told her we were planning on being in here pretty much all day and that I wanted to pack us enough resources to get through the whole day. She offered to help by making us breakfast.”

“Quite the cook, Aria?” I asked with a crinkled nose.

“Oh my gosh. She’s incredible. Her dad used to do all the cooking around their house before he left, and then she had to take up the mantle because her mom’s horrible at it.”

I leered at Tristan. “Is there anything she can’t do?”

“Well…” He started with a laugh, but then his face went stone serious as he looked up towards the ceiling, deep in thought. “Uh, no… I don’t think so actually.”

I forced out a fake laugh. “That was a rhetorical question, but thanks for confirming.”

“In that vein, and if it makes you feel any better, it sounds like Arden won’t be going back to The Undersound ever,” Tristan said. “Aria managed to get her fake ID revoked.”

“Arden didn’t flip out?” I asked.

“She did at first, but her and Aria are so solid, they got through it. Arden agrees that it’s bad for her there and promised Aria she won’t be going back,” Tristan explained, “but also fuck her?”

“Thanks for telling me,” I said, but inside, I was seething. Why did Aria have so much more success with Arden than I did?

Though I had been more open with Tristan about my love life as of late, my growing loathing for his girlfriend hadn’t come up yet. In truth, I was terrified to broach the subject because I honestly believed if Tristan had to choose between Aria and me, he’d choose her no question. Eventually, I was probably going to have to admit that she wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but maybe that was a conversation best had later.

Like in a week or two years from now.

“Anyway,” I said, desperate to shift the conversation elsewhere. “Can you look over my powerpoint for me? I’ve been staring at it nonstop and need a fresh set of eyes to make sure I’m not missing anything.”

“Oh sure.” He stood up and walked around to my side of the table and braced his arms on either side and looked over my shoulder. On reflex, I folded against his arm, snuggling into his embrace and comforting smell, and he set his head on top of mine. “Alright, go ahead.”

I started to flip through the slides one by one, making note of anything Tristan pointed out and just generally enjoying our closeness. It had been so long since we were allowed to just properly snuggle that I forgot how much I missed it. I was skin-starved in the worst way, and even though Tristan and I weren’t romantically involved, the intimacy was welcome.

“I miss this,” I said.

“Powerpoints?” Tristan replied.

“No,” I said with a laugh. “Snuggling.”

He nuzzled his head against the top of mine. “You don’t have to miss it, you know. I’m always up for a good snuggle.”

I just ignored it. He knew how I felt about it. Even as I thought about the fact that Aria would walk in and see us there made me want to unwrap us. It was just weird, and no matter what she said, there was no way she was just okay with him cuddling with me.

“This