Perfect Illusion

Fifteen - "So Scandalous."

"You son of a bitch," I hiss at Daniel when we get back to the penthouse.

He closes the door behind him with a huge sigh. "Great. What have I done now to call forth your wrath on me?"

"You know." I sneer at him.

He crosses his arms and faces me. "No actually I don't."

"You... You... kissed me on the cheek!"

He throws up his hands in an exaggerated manner. "So scandalous!"

My face is red. "Daniel, you kissed me just to prove a point to Nate. I saw him after you did it. He was absolutely wrecked."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He throws his bag onto the floor and jumps on the couch.

"Bullshit," I spit. "You did it just to spite him. I can't believe you would do that. Isn't he your friend?"

"Not really."

"Not really?" I say, almost baffled. I always assumed that Nate and Daniel were friends because of the whole sharing an apartment thing.

"Well, we never actually got along very much," He explains as he shuffles through the channels on the television with his remote. I heave a sigh and sit on one of the club chairs opposite from him. "He never agreed with my... ways of sexing up to women."

I snort. "I'm pretty sure that's a legit reason for someone not to like you, Daniel."

"First off, everyone loves me. Especially the ladies," He settles on some cooking channel and the both of us watch as Jamie Oliver cooks up some meat loaf. "Secondly, Nate and I... we just don't like each other okay? There's no way to explain it. The only reason why we manage to put up with each other is because of Simon."

"Simon?" I echo. Then I realize that's Daniel and Nate's other roommate. Well, ex-roommate.

"Yeah. Redhead. Hazel eyes. Gamer dude. Doesn't like to talk much. Super anti-social when it comes to meeting new people." Daniel tells me. "It took me a lot of balls to pluck up the courage to even talk to him when we first met. He's a super nice and cool person. We got along pretty well. Nate and him too. So yeah, Simon's like the glue that keeps the three of us together."

Okay. So another mention of this mysterious guy Simon I have never met before. If he's Daniel's best friend, he must be running along the same lines of crazy as him.

"So.. without him... Nate and I? Probably not a good combination ever."

"Okay. That is so not the point I'm trying to make here. That still doesn't justify what you did to him today," I shake my head. "I like Nate, okay? He's a nice guy. You can't do that to him, regardless of whether you hate him or not."

"Seriously, Alex." He throws the remote on the couch and turns his attention to me now. "You don't get it do you? I have a perfectly good reason to why I did what I did. Nate's still pining over you. He can't get over you, and I need to make it very clear that you are with me, you got that?"

What is with arrogant boys and their possessiveness?

"So yeah, I kissed you to prove a point." His shoulders lift. "So he can stop believing that there's even the slightest of chance that you will fall for him. He needs to stay the hell away from you, and from us. If he's too stubborn to realize that you are taken, then he's going to be a complication for the both of us."

"He won't be." I breathe. "I'll.. make sure of it."

"Good." He says.

"So... I can't even be friends with him?" I ask.