Chapter 2

Candace’s male best friend gave me a once-over, making no effort to hide the disdain in his voice.

“We told you this was a bachelor’s party. Why are you still clinging to Hunter like a leech?”

“I’ve heard she can’t stand being away from Hunter. Now I finally get to see it for myself.”

“No wonder he always feels suffocated. Who could put up with a fiancee like her?”

Those words struck me like slaps across the face.

I looked at Hunter, who sat beside Candace. His brow furrowed when he noticed the bloodstains on my knees.

Candace leaned toward him, looking pleased with herself as she said, “Well? Pretty clever of me, right? By calling her over, we wouldn’t be the last ones to arrive, so we wouldn’t have to take the punishment.”

Hunter reached up and playfully tapped her nose. His eyes were filled with affection.

“You always come up with the craziest schemes.”

He never asked how someone with night blindness had managed to get here from a deserted area more than thirty-seven miles away.

A few of Hunter’s old friends lined up ten glasses of hard liquor in front of me.

“Since you’re here, you have to follow the rules. The last one to arrive has to drink ten shots as punishment.”

After going all day without food, my stomach was churning.

I instinctively looked at Hunter.

He finally spoke, but not to defend me.

“Jocelyn, you’re always saying you want to fit in with us. What good are words if you never back them up? I can’t make an exception for you just because you’re my girlfriend.”

He knew, too, that all it would have taken was one word from him to make them stop forcing me to drink. Yet he chose to sit back and watch me suffer the humiliation.

With someone blocking the door behind me, I picked up the first glass and downed it.

The liquor slid down my throat and into my stomach, burning through me like fire. I could not stop myself from gagging.

Laughter immediately erupted around me.

“Spitting it out doesn’t count. You have to take another shot.”

“Miss Stroud, surely you can manage ten shots?”

By the time I gritted my teeth and finished all ten, my legs could barely hold me up. I stumbled into the restroom and threw up until I could barely catch my breath.

When I finally emerged, I heard someone teasing Candace.

“Candace lives the closest, yet she almost arrived last. She should at least down one shot, shouldn’t she?”

Candace reached for the glass, but Hunter beat her to it and downed it in one gulp.

“I was the one who held us up on the way here. This one’s on me.”

After hearing that, I braced myself against the cold wall, suddenly feeling an even sharper pain in my stomach.

‘I tried so hard to fit in with them, never realizing their circle had been nothing more than a place for them to humiliate me from the very beginning,’ I thought.

With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone, shared my location with Dad, and texted him.

[Dad, I’ve realized I was wrong. Come get me and take me home, okay?]

When I returned to the private room, everyone was gathered in a circle, playing Truth or Dare.

In the first round, Hunter drew Truth.

Someone asked, “When was the last time someone made your heart race?”

Hunter smiled and took my hand.

“Last night.”

However, his gaze slid past me to Candace.

She playfully kicked him, and a bashful smile spread across her face.

At the same time, my phone vibrated.

[Romantic excitement score: 98.]

Hunter continued, “I missed Jocelyn so much that I couldn’t sleep.”

I lowered my gaze to the number on my screen. It felt as though someone had ripped my chest open, letting an icy wind seep into the wound inch by inch.

In the second round, Candace drew Dare.

“Give one of the guys here a real kiss.”

The private room erupted in deafening cheers and whistles.

Candace insisted she would not do it, but her eyes never left Hunter.

He looked at me as though he expected me to step in and get her out of it.

In the past, I would have done exactly that. After all, Candace was my best friend.

This time, though, I stayed right where I was.

Hunter’s expression darkened by the second.

Just as Candace huffed and started toward another guy, he sprang to his feet and shoved the guy aside.

The next moment, Hunter cupped Candace’s face and kissed her.

My phone flashed with a notification as the score shot through the roof.

[Romantic excitement score: 127.]

My eyes burned with unshed tears as I watched them kiss as if no one else existed.

Several minutes passed before they reluctantly pulled apart.

Candace wiped her mouth, feigning disgust.

“Your kissing skills are terrible. Only Jocelyn can put up with you.”

Hunter tugged at the hem of his shirt but did not argue. He merely patted my hand when he noticed how upset I was.

“Jocelyn, we’ve all grown up together. None of us has ever thought of Candace as a woman. Don’t read too much into it.”

I looked at him and suddenly found his words absurd.

‘He claims none of them sees her as a woman, yet his score shoots up to 127 when he kisses her,’ I thought.

I swallowed the dull ache in my chest and shook my head.

“I don’t mind.”

Whether as a friend or lover, I wanted nothing more to do with someone who had turned rotten.