Agreements With Mr Rich Boy | ✓

45 | Unwanted Reunions

IT SHOULDN'T HAVE mattered all that much. It was only clothes. But I think it was more that I felt betrayed. Why hadn't he told me? Was it because he felt sorry for me? The Archer I'd met in that shop was far from the sympathising kind. Surely he hadn't planned all this from the start. Surely.

"Jolie, are you alright?" Autumn was saying, squeezing my arm. "You look a little faint."

I looked at her. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just a bit light-headed."

She brought me toward the nearest table. "Here, look, have a seat. Take the weight off for a bit, alright?"

She was right, but Archer had finished his mini row with his mother and was headed this way. I just couldn't see him. Not yet.

It's only clothes, I told myself over and over. But it wasn't about just clothes.

I picked myself up from the chair and slipped past Autumn. I used other people as a shield so that I wouldn't be spotted by Archer. He'd find me eventually, but I needed to scrape together some composure before I saw him.

I could hardly breathe. It felt like everything around me was coming crashing down, and sucking all the oxygen away with it. He'd been right with what he'd said before: I did need his money. And he knew it. He fucking knew it all along.

"Jolie?" A voice said from behind me.

"Annalise," I said with a mixture of relief and a grimace. I was glad it was her over someone else, but then I wasn't exactly too thrilled about coming face to face with the boy I loved's ex. Love? Did I really just— I didn't have time to second guess myself as I realised she was waiting for me to say something.
"How are you?"

"Oh, I'm alright," she said with a genuine smile. Couldn't she just be a bitch? Like a huge, unforgivable bitch just so I had a reason not to like her. Just once. "I've been meaning to ask you about something actually."

I chewed on the inside of my mouth. "Really?" She nodded, almost bashful. "What did you want to ask me about?"

"Well, you see, it's going to sound awfully strange..." she trailed off. "No, it's silly. I really shouldn't."

"No, no," I told her, trying to match her easiness with a smile. But that was difficult when I was constantly looking around for the tall, brown haired god I really needed to avoid at the moment. "Go ahead."

"It's about your name."

"What about it?"

Jolie. It was fairly ordinary. Nothing that should seem warranting of being brought up, surely.

"Jolie?" And there it was. Only, it wasn't from her mouth.

I turned to the over grown spanish boy. He looked between me and Annalise, confusedly.

"Annalise? What are you—" he shook his head. "Never mind. Jolie, Archer's looking for you."

"I'm aware," I muttered.

He laughed, eyebrows slightly furrowed. "Aren't you going to, you know, go find him then?"

"I'm not planning on it," I told him, straight-faced. Again, he looked completely bewildered— one dark eye brow higher than the other and his mouth slightly ajar. I caught sight of his best friend, not too far away from us. This large hall was beginning to feel smaller and smaller by the minute. "Please don't tell him where I am, Noah."