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JALEN FOLLOWED NOELANI TO THE GUEST ROOM HE RESIDED IN.
She was unusually quiet, and opened and closed the door for him.
"So," Noelani started.
Jalen immediately zoomed on the fact that his phone was in her hands, "Um, what are you doing with that?"
Noelani's face held no emotion as she looked down at the device, "Jack called. Seemed surprised that I answered. Seemed surprised that we were still together at all actually and I wanted to figure out why so..." She held up his phone unabashedly.
"So you went through my phone. I thought you trusted me." Jalen said, looking down at her.
Noelani regarded him with dead eyes, the constant flow of warmth and love that she held whenever she looked at him was gone, "I did. I did trust you but then I saw something about a bet in your phone. So I just... I really need you to tell me that this isn't the truth. That the that guy I'm in love with, who I brought here to meet my family, who I basically lived with for a couple weeks, I need you to tell me that you didn't place a bet on me. On us."
Jalen debated lying again, telling her that she misunderstood and that the bet wasn't about her.
But how could Jalen claim to be in love with someone he kept lying to?
"Jack and I made a bet to see how fast I could get you, it was harmless. I stopped once I knew I had real feelings for you. It started out that way but-." Jalen started to say.
"You... You're serious? All of this... These past couple of months... Everything we've done was because of a bet?" Noelani dropped his phone onto the bed.
"It was never supposed to get this serious. I didn't know that we would connect like this." Jalen explained, moving to grab her hands.
Noelani pushed him back with a huff.
"So what? You saw me and thought 'Oh, fresh blood. Let's see how much I can fuck her life up?' Why? Why would you do that to me, Jalen? What about me seems like I deserve that?" Noelani snapped.
"It was never supposed to go this far. I was supposed to dump you after homecoming."
"Wow. Just... I don't even fully know what to say right now. Part of me wants to just beat your ass for putting me through some dumb ass shit like this." Noelani forced her hands into her wet hair and began to laugh and massage her temples.
