“Not really, but I’ll try anyway,” I started. “I got a bit of a nasty surprise when I made it up to Luka’s apartment. Another girl answered the door. One I recognized from the building before. And when I looked for Luka, he was in the shower.”

“Maybe she was there for Jason?” Lexi said, voicing the same thing I’d first thought upon seeing Josie there.

“The thought crossed my mind too, except she’s the one who told me I’d find him in the shower. Plus, I haven’t been able to shake this feeling that he’s been hiding something from me recently. And the only times I’ve ever seen her in the building coincide with when Luka damn well knew I wouldn’t be there too,” I explained further before chugging back my second glass of wine and gesturing for her to fill it up again.

“Shit,” Lexi sighed. “That doesn’t sound very good, but there could be another explanation other than the obvious.”

I thought about it for a few more minutes. Now that I was gone and in a safe place, I could see that she was right. In fact, I highly doubted that Luka was cheating on me after what had gone down with his ex. Plus, I’d just listened to him tell his own mother that his future was with me. Luka wasn’t the kind of guy to say something like that if he didn’t mean it.

“I really don’t think he has it in him to cheat on me,” I admitted. “Even if it looked exactly like that was what was happening, I don’t think he was.”

“Then why did you run?” she asked.

“Because even if he isn’t cheating, he’s still keeping something from me and that’s not good for us as a couple.”

“I agree that it’s not good to keep secrets from your significant other, but you know that sometimes there are things you don’t really intend to hide or are too scared to share. Like, say, flying mile high club flights,” she reminded me, since she’d been hiding something from Drake that had caused their big fight last year.

“I hear what you’re saying, but this is a little different,” I countered. “Whatever he’s hiding from me involves someone else. Someone cute and female. Who he is spending time with alone on what appears to be a fairly regular basis. When he goes batshit crazy if another guy even looks at me. If our roles were reversed right now, I’d be in so much trouble with him that it wouldn’t be funny. Especially since he’s the one who asked for that rule about us not spending time alone with other people so that they won’t get the wrong idea.”

“That’s true,” Lexi admitted, knowing very well how Luka could be with me.

“So how the hell could he have thought this situation was okay?” I asked. “What the literal fuck could he possibly be thinking?”

“I don’t know. The only one who does is Luka,” Lexi answered.

“And I’ll ask him to explain this to me. Later. After I’ve pulled myself back together and am ready to hear his explanation. Because even though I don’t think he’s cheating on me physically with that girl, he trusted her with his secret when he didn’t trust me. And that hurts so damn much,” I admitted before I started to cry again.

“I’m sorry, Aubrey,” Lexi whispered into my hair as she took my wine glass and pulled the blankets up.

I powered up my phone and sent Luka a quick text. I didn’t read any of the ones he sent me and I didn’t listen to his voicemail messages. If I did, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t be able to resist calling him right now. And I wasn’t ready to talk yet. I didn’t want to lash out at him in anger, but I was so fucking mad right now. Deep inside, I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was cheating on me and that there was an explanation of some kind. But it was pretty damn clear something was going on in his life and had been for a while. Something he had chosen to not share with me and instead had gone to someone else for help. I needed just a little bit of time to wrap my head around that before I would be ready to talk.

“Me too, Lexi. Me too,” I sighed back before closing my eyes tight in an attempt to shut out the whole world. I didn’t want to face this problem tonight. There would be plenty of time for that tomorrow.

chapter 14

luka

“Aubrey, please call me back. Josie told me you were here while I was in the shower. I know it looks bad, but I swear to God it is not what you think,” I said, leaving Aubrey yet another voicemail message.

I hadn’t heard a peep from her in the hour since she’d left, and it was killing me to know that she was somewhere out there hurting and it was my fault. Looking back now, I felt so fucking stupid for not coming clean with her about what was going on. If she’d pulled this shit with me, I would be so fucking pissed. Why would I have ever even thought the same wouldn’t be true for her too?