Read Attempting Elizabeth for Free Online

direction. Time slowed down and the room seemed to tilt a bit.
    “Oh my god,” I heard Tori breathe next to me.
    Ashley Brandon. The bane of my college existence. I’d know her anywhere. Finding her sucking face with my ex two months ago (which is how he’d achieved the status of ex) had burned her annoyingly perfect features permanently into my brain.
    I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. The potato skins and daiquiri were churning around in my stomach in an entirely unpleasant way.
    Ashley looked directly at me, her hand still on Mark's arm. Mark glanced up too. I must have looked like a crazy person, standing there, rooted to the floor, turning an unbecoming shade of red. Maybe if I’d been feeling less sick I would have noticed that he looked slightly uncomfortable at being manhandled by Ashley.
    But I wasn’t paying much attention to Mark's face. I was focused on Ashley and her perfectly manicured, bright red fingernails, caressing his bicep. I’d seen those same fingers running through Jerkface Jordan’s dark hair before he’d noticed me standing there in shock. The last I’d heard they were dating.
    I had to get out of here. Before I did something dumb like cry.
    “I’m going to the car,” I said in an admirably even voice to Tori.
    “I’ll get Charlie’s keys and meet you there.” There was a grim determination in her voice that made me guess that she wasn’t heading in the direction of the pool table just to retrieve the keys.
    I couldn’t bring myself to care. I turned on my heel and walked, slowly but steadily, out of the pub and to Charlie’s car. I stood quietly and waited for her to come out to the parking lot. I was silent the entire ride home. Tori eyed me uneasily as she pulled up in front of our apartment.
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    “No.” I opened the door and climbed out. “I know you probably have to go back and get Charlie. It’s okay. I’m fine.”
    “Are you sure?” She didn’t look convinced.
    “Yes. Fine. I’ll see you when you get home.” I made it all the way into the apartment and got the front door closed before I let myself cry.

~ Chapter Four ~
     
    “You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-h ole goes.”
     
    I felt slightly better after my crying jag. I’m not even sure why I was crying. I wasn’t still crying over Jordan. I knew I was infinitely better off without him and his habit of subtly putting me down.
    I wasn’t really crying because of Ashley. I hated her, she hated me. It was a mutual thing. I had no idea how she knew it would bother me for her to be draping herself all over Mark. It could have been completely coincidental. I mean, he was hot. She probably couldn’t help herself around someone that attractive. On the other hand, Charlie had been standing right there and she certainly knew who he was. Had she seen us all sitting at the table earlier and thought I liked Mark so she thought she’d make a move? Well, the joke was on her, because I didn’t like Mark.
    Okay, perhaps I was slightly attracted to him. Slightly might be a bit of an understatement. I hadn’t been this attracted to a guy since Jerkface Jordan. And that certainly turned out well. But unlike Jordan, something about Mark annoyed me. I felt off-kilter and awkward around him. I’m not the smoothest person in the world, but so far, in my two days of knowing Mark, I’d yet to come across in anything approaching a good light.
    “He’s not my type anyway. I prefer tall, dark, and handsome, not short, red-headed, and snarky.” I ignored the fact that tall, dark, and handsome obviously didn’t prefer me, and that calling Mark short was patently unfair. Yeah, he wasn’t towering over six feet, but there wasn’t anything...lacking...about him physically. I pulled my mind back sharply from where it was wandering—not even wandering really, more like running full speed —down a very dangerous path.
    The point was, I