Painful Pleasures

Chapter 5

April's POV.

Heartbreak Hotel exists.
And for me, it's Splitz. The restaurant specializes only in anything chocolate, cream, sugar, and most desserts.
I am at the booth near the window, scanning over the writing in my book while I take another huge scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of my fudge brownie.
Oh, God.
It's like heaven in my mouth. I savor the taste as I try to summarize what I've read in the other book. If I can finish this book on time, I'd probably finish my project today and face the last one this weekend.
That has been my routine for 2 weeks now.
Read, projects and chocolate.
I can't...I just can't keep dwelling in all that drama.
From getting heartbroken.
To getting drunk.
To losing my phone.
To getting a hangover.
To shutting Gretchen out.

I needed to be alone, it had been too much to take in that hangover morning. I'd lost my phone and my only relationship and Gretchen had brought coffee.
Trying to help, asking what went wrong, what the voicemail said. Then I told her off, I didn't need her help but I just wanted to be alone.
I wanted to get myself back alone.
I was tired...so tired of people and the drama they brought.

Shaking my head, I flip a page and sit back, spooning some brownie into my mouth as my eyes scanned over the letters. With the two years I'd spent in this school, I had not paid so much attention to projects as I did now. Then my focus had been on someone...but now it was time to build up more on school work.
Then I felt it.
Or rather...I felt him. Even before I looked up, I knew.

"Two weeks." He says, hands in his pockets with his intense grey eyes not leaving mine.
Oh, God, I didn't need this now. I had already embarrassed myself around him at the bar...and then Gretchen said he brought me back. I don't even remember anything...I probably threw up on him too. And now here he is.

"What?"

"You vanished for two complete weeks." He said and sat down across me, eyes never leaving mine.

"What, are you tracking me now?" I say trying hard to avoid his eyes, eyes that felt like he could read me.

"No."

"Or you want to save me from having a sugar rush? What do you want?"
I say. I didn't need any more boy drama in my life but here his intense eyes were already probing through my defense.

"Would you calm down, I just-" He begins but I cut him off.

"I'm not calming down. I can't have coffee, or alcohol, or ice cream without you around."
Shut up, April. He helped you....remember?

"The last thing I need is your presence." I say and the muscles at his jaw and temples flex.

"And the last thing I need is your bloody arrogance." He says and gets up then tosses a white object on the table as he storms out.

My phone.

By the time I look up, he is already out the door, marching over to a BMW.

Ethan's POV
Women.

Somehow I knew this wouldn't work out. Every time we met all we did was bite at each other and I shouldn't have expected better.
I was going to give her the phone, ask her what exactly had happened since she had already spilled everything. By two sentences into the conversation, I could tell she didn't remember.

So much for finding out.

"Wait!" I hear her voice just as I unlock my car. When I turn around, she is already there behind me, phone in hand.

"I don't want it." She says, her head down, gaze planted to the ground.

"What?"
She can't be serious.