I knew Tiny was creating an opportunity for me to speak to Ella alone—we’ve used similar strategies before—but I hadn’t considered it from the angle that she wants to shake up Justin’s control over Ella. Did Tiny just use me as bait? One look at her, and I know I’m right. I don’t know whether to be impressed or mad, given I didn’t figure it out, nor did she warn me.
“I was with Holden,” Ella tells Justin as we navigate through the carnival.
“Yeah, I saw you run after him,” he says with a barbed tone.
Ella’s cheeks flush as she realizes the same thing I did—Justin’s jealous. She covers her embarrassment with a laugh. “If you knew where I went, then why’d you ask?”
“I’m not allowed to ask my girlfriend questions?” he says like she’s the one who’s making this weird.
“Of course you are. It’s just not a big deal.”
“I guess so,” he says in a way that clearly communicates it is.
Tiny gives me a satisfied look, and I frown.
Ella touches Justin’s arm, but he shrugs her off. “You’re mad?” she asks.
“Should I be?”
“No, you shouldn’t,” she says definitively.
“Fine, then I’m not,” Justin replies in a tone that says the opposite. “Let’s just forget about it.” He reaches forward and taps Sharky’s elbow. “You got that bourbon?”
Amber obligingly pulls the flask from her purse, and Justin moves up beside her, leaving Ella alone.
And the hurt look on Ella’s face irks me. Not only do I have a bone-deep dislike of Justin, I’m not sure I love Tiny’s tactic, either.
I slow my pace and we fall a couple more feet behind the group. “You could have warned me,” I breathe at my best friend, but she only shrugs.
“I told you what we needed to do, and this set up the first domino,” she says, her voice low and mostly masked by the crowd. “I know what you’re worrying about, and I’m not trying to set you up as a rival and get us ousted from this group. We won’t put you in that position again. This just had the beauty of a dual purpose, giving you time to bond and also showing his true colors.” Then she gives me a quasi-suspicious look. “Unless you went rogue and flirted with her, which would obviously be a prob—”
“Of course I didn’t,” I say, cutting her off, frustrated that she’d even suggest it. “You know me better than that.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about,” she replies, but my discomfort remains like a tiny barb in a sweater that scratches me when I move but disappears every time I look for it.