Chapter 369
Stella’s point of view
I snapped my head toward her, forcing the broken pieces of my face back together with monumental effort as I answered dryly, "Hi, Julie."
Julie stepped forward with soft, fluid strides, quietly sitting down on the sofa right next to me. "I had no idea it was you knocking at the door," she said, a trace of gentle blame in her tone. "Otherwise, I would have come out to greet you myself without a single second of delay."
I stared at her beautiful face with a freezing, lethal chill. "It’s totally fine, sweetie... Jake and I were just catching up on some old matters."
Julie began to lift her torso halfway as if she intended to vacate the room. "Well... if you guys are discussing an important topic, I’ll leave you two alone in the living room so you can finish your conversation comfortably without any interruption from me."
Jake intervened with extreme velocity, a blatant eagerness and relief bleeding through his voice as he seized the chance to escape the toxic trap I had backed him into. "No, no... there is absolutely no important or secret topic here at all. Stay right where you are. Don’t go."
"Can I get you some hot coffee, a cold juice, or anything to drink so you can relax, Stella?" Julie asked, her sharp, intelligent eyes scanning back and forth between our visibly tense faces.
"No," I clipped out dryly. "Thanks. I don’t want anything."
Jake moved with slow, calculated steps to completely remove himself from my immediate radius. He sank heavily into the single armchair positioned on the opposite side of the living room. Julie turned back to me, trying to diffuse the suffocating, heavy atmosphere. "Since you came to visit us tonight, how about we watch a movie together to change the mood of the house?"
"Sure," I replied, completely ignoring the wild fire of jealousy ripping through my gut. "I don’t mind. I love movies."
Inside, I could feel my heart disintegrating into black ash. With every single fiber of my being, I wanted to aggressively grab Julie by her long hair and crush her face between my bare hands until she was completely deformed all because she had dared to kiss Jake like that, even though I loved her and considered her a friend.
Julie smoothly rose from her seat, walking toward the shelf to grab the remote control. But it slipped straight through her fingers, hitting the wooden floor with a sharp clatter before the small battery popped out, rolling into the dark void beneath the sofa.
Jake lunged forward with sudden speed. "Stay right there, Julie... I’ll bend down and fish the battery out from underneath."
"No," Julie shot back with her trademark stubborness, completely ignoring his words as she bent down anyway. "Stay where you are. I’ll get it easily."
Julie bent her entire torso low toward the wooden floor, extending her hand deep under the couch. Because of how far she had lowered her body, the tight, perfect curves of her backside became prominently and vividly exposed.
Taking a deep breath that filled my lungs with pure poison, I spoke to Julie in a soft voice that practically dripped with low-handed deceit:
"The genre doesn’t matter at all, dearest Julie... anything will be incredibly fun and entertaining for all of us, as long as we’re spending this beautiful night together!"
I noticed Jake’s fingers instantly clamp down with iron force against the wooden armrest of his chair until his knuckles turned stark white. His rough, grating voice abruptly cut through the space, ending the pleasantries. "I’ll choose the movie myself then."
He aggressively snatched the remote straight out of Julie’s hand, his fingers clicking the buttons with a subtle violence that made the plastic groan. Meanwhile, I was burning, bleeding, and dying a slow death on the inside because of their disgusting, dirty act. Damn them both to hell, and damn that violent, sickening kiss I had witnessed with my own two eyes behind the glass.
I turned my head toward Julie, who was sitting close to me, running a calculated, deeply resentful gaze over her features. I hurled my very first explosive grenade straight into her and Jake’s faces with a sudden, devastating question:
"By the way, Julie... I just remembered. My brother Mike told me that he personally invited you out to have dinner with him tomorrow night, completely alone... did you actually agree to go out with him?"
In that exact, freezing second, Jake’s massive fingers instantly froze over the remote control, his entire movement completely paralyzed. His colossal frame locked up as solid as stone, waiting for her answer with bated breath while the veins in his neck threatened to explode from sheer, unadulterated jealousy and raging fury.
[I hope I was able to make it up to you with these Chapters. Please tell me if you have forgiven me or not. I will not be away from you again ]

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