Milked

Skylar | spitters are quitters.

My feelings toward Phil had grown tepid. I didn't want them to, but it seemed to be an automatic response of mine, driven by my warning lights, triggered by his heightened intimacy and his admission that I made his life worth living.

I made myself less available, didn't return his affection as fervently as I used to, and became generally chillier in our interactions.

The whole situation knotted my stomach, and I couldn't stop thinking about how ridiculous I was being. Loren said my situation before had been messed up, but this new situation felt even more messed up. Still, I couldn't prevent myself from growing colder.

Phil texted me on Wednesday. "I know you've been really busy, but I was hoping you could come over soon."

"Sorry. Super busy with school. It sucks."

"How's the marketing plan going?"

"It's going well. I've been working on it at home."

I really had been working on it, and I'd even been getting Jerry's help, because I knew it was important. I still viewed my internship with Phil as being very important to my eventual career. But that was another problem. This was why conflicts of interest were banned in many workplaces: they created issues. If I got too cold with Phil, would he sever my internship? Would my grand opportunity cease to exist?

While I mulled over this conflict, someone rang our apartment's doorbell. I went to answer it, and opened the door to find Shane. Sexy, rude, assholey Shane. I felt relieved Phil didn't stand before me. Still, Shane and I hadn't spoken to each other since that night at Hazed and Dazed, and I wondered what he considered me. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a friend. A friend of a friend, maybe, or worse.

"Meg isn't here," I told him, since she had to be the reason he was here. The two of them were supposed to be training for a half marathon, even though I couldn't remember Meg telling me she'd been training lately.

"Well, do you know where she is?"

"I'm not her keeper. And you have her number."

He frowned, then asked, "What about Loren? Have you talked to him?"

"If you want to know Loren's whereabouts, you should just ask him."

Furrowing his pretty eyebrows, Shane said, "Skylar, is your head full of air, or do you just not care that two of your friends might be going through hell right now?"

Going through Hell? "Woah, woah. That's a bit of an overstatement. Meg has been a little mopey, but she'll perk up with some retail therapy. And Loren was the same asshole he usually is last time I checked."

Shane got close to me here, almost like he wanted to make a threat. I didn't back away, because he didn't scare me. "You know," he said, and I could smell his breath, fruity like he'd been chewing gum. "I don't know what he sees in you." Then he turned around and left, leaving me stunned into silence.

His words got to me in a way I didn't understand.

And what the hell was wrong with Loren? What kind of hell was he going through?

Curiosity gripped me, but Loren and I hadn't talked since I rejected him for the second time at Hazed and Dazed. Maybe my rejection put him into a state of sadness, but I had a feeling not. Loren might have been pissed at me leaving him high and dry when he wanted to get his penis wet, but he would've gotten over it.

And Meg...well, I didn't know what exactly had happened with Meg, but I suspected she still felt guilty about her interactions with Richard, which sucked for her, and yeah, I felt bad.