Love with strings detached

Chapter 47

The lovely smell of freshly made coffee and croissants feel my nostrils as I take a deep breath. This small little coffee shop in the city centre is everything. It has such a relaxing atmosphere is perfect for a Sunday afternoon.

I, Theo, Abi, Caleb and Julian sit at a round wooden table next to each other after Julian's request, he said he wanted to talk about Zoe.

Turns out these two are dating for real and Julian genuinely likes Zoe. He just didn't think it was worth mentioning that until he was sure about his feelings.

I shift around in my seat trying to get more comfortable and bite my lip as my ass still feels a bit sore after a day and a half. Theo is a strong guy so his slaps on my ass stink, in a good way at the time and in a slightly uncomfortable way later.

Theo glances at me and smirks as he trails his eyes all over my body.

"So, are you going to tell us what's this about?" Caleb asks as we've been sitting here for the past 20 minutes and still no word from Julian.

"I think I'm going to break it off with her once she shows up in an hour," he says, making my eyebrows shoot up.

"Why?" Theo asks with furrowed eyebrows.

"Because, if I'm honest, I think she's using me as a rebound," he says, shrugging whilst placing his cup down.

"Why are you saying that? You said you were into her," Abi says, resting her head in her hands.

"And I was into her, until recently," he says sighing.

"Look, the only reason why I even agreed with her to go on a date, was that I thought she was pretty and funny and I thought why not, we're both single. The first thing I ask her was about her and Aaron," he says, moving his arms around on the table.

"She reassured me that they were over and she had no feelings for him after what he did to her and I believed her, she didn't give me a reason not to, until more recently," he says, stopping to wet his lips before continuing.

"When we first all hanged out together before the holidays, there was still tension between them and the small glances at each other the whole night didn't go unnoticed by me."

"And that leads you to believe she's not as over him as she said she was," I say, watching him nod.

"Yeah, that's what got me thinking and then I remembered smaller things even before that night that I had ignored at the start," he says, leaning back on his chair.

"Like what?" Theo asks, fidgeting with the zipper of his jacket whilst looking at him.

"Like mentioning him when we're on a date. Ranting about him when we would hang out together randomly. Catching her looking at photos of them together on her phone and something a bit more personal and then the glances on nights out together," he says, casting his gaze down on the table.

"What's the more personal thing, you know we can talk about anything," Caleb says, putting his hand on his shoulder.

"It's a bit embarrassing that's why I used the word personal but basically we didn't have sex once in the whole month and a half that we've been dating," he says, keeping his voice on the low.

"Why not?" Abi asks.

"Because she didn't want to, she was always finding an excuse so we wouldn't do it and then the only time she wanted to have sex with me was after this two nights out where we all hanged out together," he says, leaning closer on the table.

"Oh, wow," I mumble before scoffing.

"So basically after she saw Aaron she wanted to suddenly fuck you?" Abi more so states than asks.