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Elle's PoV
I tried to regular my breath down. Ethan has been triggering me in the past time enough, now that Justin is trying to make me feel guilty of distracting me from what I'm going through, is not helping at all. I know that he is my boss somewhere, but that doesn't mean he can treat me like a literal whore. I'm his employee, I'm working for him and I need to set my boundaries for him. I know he was interested in more but I feel dirty for even allowing a small percentage of coming close to me. Ethan is working with him, and I would feel like a slut for hooking up with someone he introduced me to.
After I made a scene in the middle of the party, my eyes kept looking for Evelyn or Kace. it's their party, so what is Justin even doing here?
I mean we live in a small town where everyone knows everyone but I never heard of any mutuals with him before.
"Hey, what was that?" I hear Evelyn find me.
I shake my head, trying to not keep my attitude, "It's fine, he's my boss and just got weird."
"Wait—" Evelyn's eyes widened with confusion, as if she was trying to piece something together. "First of all, that Justin is your boss?"
"Yeah," I whispered, feeling a little puzzled by her reaction. I didn't understand why she seemed so shocked. To me, Justin was just... Justin. Sure, he was charming and confident, but nothing that would leave someone speechless. "What do you mean by that Justin?"
Evelyn looked like she was searching for the right words. "Ugh," she finally said, almost exasperated. "He's Mikel's best friend. You know, Brooklyn's boyfriend?"
I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Brooklyn? From high school?" I hadn't thought about her in years, but the memories were still there, tucked away. Brooklyn had been popular, the kind of girl everyone knew and most wanted to be. And Mikel—I vaguely remembered him, always around, always a presence, but not someone I had ever been close to.
But Justin... He didn't stand out in those memories at all. No face or name came to mind. He was a blank slate, completely unfamiliar despite the strong connection Evelyn seemed to think we should share.
"I had no idea," I murmured, more to myself than to Evelyn. I was trying to reconcile the Justin I knew now—my boss, the man I saw almost every day—with the image she was painting. "I don't remember Justin from back then at all."
Evelyn looked at me, a mix of surprise and disbelief on her face. "Seriously? He used to hang out with Mikel and Brooklyn all the time. He was at practically every party."
I shook my head slowly, trying to dig through old memories, but coming up empty. "He didn't break out in any of my memories," I admitted, feeling a strange sense of detachment. How could someone who now seemed so central to my life have been so invisible to me back then?
