My Mafia Boytoy

Chapter 5 - Obsession

In the middle of me studying, book cranked open on my lap, Yazmin calls me. I know because she's the only person prioritized on my phone when I'm on study mode.

I answer.

'Leo and I just had our first argument.'

I figure Leo's the guy she's seeing. I try not to digest their names since they're never here long anyway. A brief, unpleasant bout, the kind this specific Leo doubtlessly gives her in bed.

'About what?'

'Like I know. He just started complaining and saying we needed to sit down and talk about our relationship. Then he called me too high maintenance and that it's impossible to deal with. So I said he knew that going in. I'm a daughter of the Pear family. What the hell was he expecting, right? And he just blew up, volcanically, and left.'

'Are you guys still together?'

I wait for the glorious no to chime from her line, my tongue already buzzing with consolation, already thinking of what to bring from my pantry to disrupt her diet.

'I don't know.' The word know sounds just like no, so I half-celebrate.

'Do you want me there?'

'Yes, please.''

'I'm coming over right now.'

•

It's a quick jog. Ten minutes. And I find the door open. I step inside, shut it, and in the dorm's mini parlour, Yazmin's stretched across her couch.

She has a mint blue t-shirt on with a cat print and shorts. I lug my backpack off me, drop it by the glass coffee table, and sit beside her. She scoots her head into my lap and I run my hair through her luscious black curls.

'I told you he wasn't good,' I say.

'You say that about every guy I date.'

'Because every guy you date is trash. Find someone worthy of you and I'd be happy.'

'Your standards are way too high.'

'Yours are disgustingly low.'

She reaches at the coffee table for her Aquafor tube and smears the product over her lips with her finger. 'He's so good to me though. And I really like him.'

'Curse of being so big-hearted.'

Her wide black eyes pan to me. 'Can you try to get along with him?'

Something in me twists. 'He's your boyfriend.'

'And you're my best friend.'

'You want your best friend talking to your boyfriend?'

'Anything over you making an enemy of him.'

'Yeah, but don't you think it's a bit not worth it?'

'How?'

'You know.'

'No, I don't. Tell me.'

I brush fingers down her hair, gliding them off her temple. 'Anyone would be a fool to leave you.'

She sits upright, head flying off my lap, and puts her back onto the couch. I ache to cross the distance. 'Sammy.'

'What's the issue?' I reach out.

She swats my hand away. 'Is it so impossible to think I could hold a relationship?'

I stare at her, notorious serial monogamist, and say, 'No. You can have anyone you want.'

'Do you think I can keep them?'

Her longest relationship was Avery, at a whopping two months, two days shy of passing the honeymoon phase. I do not lie to Yazmin. Lies destroy relationships. I have first-hand experience. So I don't lie, because this is a relationship worth preserving.

'Have you?'

Her face changes. 'Can you please leave?'

Nothing about me budges. 'I didn't mean it like that.'

'I know.' Her face is stiff. 'Can you go?'

She's not asking. But still. 'Yaz, please, listen. You're so much better than that—'

'Do you even like me? Like, honestly?'

'What kind of question is that?'

'A reasonable one! I told you I like this man. And all you ever tell me is to leave him. Don't you care about my happiness?'

'Of course, I do. Are you insane?'

'Do you think I am?'

All this heartache over a man. Denouncing me over a man. My chest hollows out like a vortex's ripped in the middle of it. I reach to her again but she barricades with a pillow. 'You could do so much better.'

'Is that why you're alone? No one but me and half your family because of your shitty standards. And even I'm getting tired.'

'You don't mean that.'

She's quieter when she says, 'I just want someone to love me.'

I grip the pillow between us, my knee digging into the cushion. My heart thuds. 'I love you.'

'I want a man to love me.' Her voice cracks. 'Not a sister.'

I enclose her in a hug, push her cheek against my chest, and she shudders. Can a man who makes her cry like this ever lead to her happiness? No. It's a simple answer. Why can't Yazmin see that?

'Don't cry, okay? I'm sorry.' I pat her back till it stops contracting against me, hold her there, in clothes she would never wear in front of anyone but me. And maybe that boy toy of hers, but still. I'm more important. I'm here and he's not and that makes all the difference.

She starts meekly. 'Sometimes you do things that—that rub the guys I date the wrong way.'

'Like what?'

'Like this.' I try to formulate a response but Yazmin's quicker. 'I swear, the reason I can't keep anyone is because I keep you.'

It doesn't hurt to hear that. Definitely. Yazmin pulls back, cheeks damp and lashes glistening. God, those lashes. They look like a miracle of serums and genetics. I thumb away the wetness below her left eye.

'Sammy, can you please just leave?'

It would be wrong to deny it or pretend I don't hear this time. She would hate me. Her face already closes off as she melts into the couch behind.

'But...'

'Sammy, please.'

This cannot be real. 'What about our hangout soon?'

She shoots dark, rheumy eyes at me. 'Does this look like the time?'

'I don't care. But I was hoping we would—'

'I don't know!' She snaps. 'You're so weird and obsessive, Sams. Just get out.' She spreads a hand to the door.

Heat prickles behind my eyes instantly. I pick myself off the couch, gather my backpack, and lock eyes with her. If she takes it back, I would forgive her now. She won't even have to feel as ashamed when they do break up.

She doesn't take it back.

As I close the door behind me, a sniffle leaks out of the room.

I might be a total shitbag.

And maybe there was some truth in Yazmin's words. Maybe I obsessed. It was what besties did. They obsessed and knew and calculated. They stick their necks out for each other. But they don't throw one to the curb over a guy with a three letter name.

And she doesn't know what hell I'm going through. Why is she wreaking hers on me? Every week she has boy troubles. One big break without them and she figures this guy's the one and that I'm the obsessive freak? I've been her f*****g norm since we started this university.

On the way to my dorm, I chant f**k her in my head. She was a distraction. For a while, anyway. I've divvied less time into studying since the investigation and even more since her. It's good we don't have that hangout anymore.

I don't even care.

I turn the corner of the dumb medical building, conjoining an insult that's never been said before, when I crash into a chest. This is the second time.

'Samara?'

Oliver.

'What are you doing here?' This close to Yazmin's dorm I leave unsaid. Because Yazmin doesn't care about me, right? She didn't even say I-love-you back. I don't care about her.

'Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just—I was on the way to meet Leo.'

I'm going to explode if I hear his name, again, if I see him again, but damn, if he doesn't live close to Yazmin.

'For what?'

'Hanging at his place. And I don't know. He called me.' Oliver pauses. 'Why're you leaving from the direction of Yazmin's dorm in tears?'

'I'm not in tears.'

'Right. Thought as much. The wet eyes really—'

'Shut up.'

He jumps his fingertips on his jean-clad thighs. 'Sorry. Do you want to come along?'

'Leo doesn't like me much.'

'Well. Yeah. You're his girlfriend's hostile guard dog.'

'f**k you.' Which I shouldn't say, but Oliver shrinks in a way that makes me feel bad about it. He's never been that scary. But he's a murderer.

'Right. I need to read the room and all that. I can be dense. I didn't mean anything by it or...'

'Don't you have to ask him, anyway?'

Oliver's face blanks before he realizes what I'm talking about. 'Leo said I could invite some women. Never specified who.'

'Is this a get together or a party?'

'No clue. You look like you could use either, though?'

I don't respond immediately. 'I could maybe come. I have nothing better to do anyway.'