After Chapter 81 – Friends in low places.

Previously: Hardin is a jerk at Tessa’s work.
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Marines: The next chapters took so long to publish because it took me so long to get through this chapter. The world is garbage and this book is cyanide cherry on top. 

Hardin leaves Tessa’s place of employment, finally. Tessa apologizes to her boss, but since he’s BFFs with Hardin’s dad, it doesn’t actually matter. Tessa starts daydreaming about sex on her desk and her boss has to repeat something about payroll THREE TIMES before she pays attention to him. She’s killing the employment game. 

Samantha: Can you imagine your teenaged intern just gazing off into space while you’re trying to teach them about work stuff? Get it together, girl.

Mari: Tessa does her job for like two sentences. She gets so lost reading a manuscript that she’s late leaving work. She notices a missed call from Hardin, which she returns as soon as she gets to her car. He doesn’t answer. 

Back at her dorm, Tess is surprised to find that Steph is actually home. She makes a joke to that effect, but Steph is sad and sniffly. Turns out that she broke up with her boyfriend Tristan. They got into a fight, she dumped him, but she didn’t mean it. She was just so angry that she found Tristan sitting next to Molly. In whole flirting distance of Molly. Tessa thought that Molly and Steph were friends, but Molly doesn’t care about that. “She’ll do anything to get male attention,” Steph says. This is all the fuel Tessa needs for her Molly fire. 

Samantha: I just. We’re making Molly the villainous girl to both Tessa AND Steph? Damn. And they were just sitting near each other? Not even on a bed or anything? Just… chairs presumably?

Mari: Yes, but Molly was flirting and also we need a villain, I guess. 

Tessa tells Steph to just call Tristan and talk it out. Steph ask what if Tristan is with Molly right now. Tessa assures her that isn’t the case. She can’t imagine Tristan going after Molly. Steph isn’t convinced.

“How do you know? Sometimes you think you know people, but you don’t,” she says and looks into my eyes. “H–“

Obviously Steph was going to finally tell us what heinous thing Hardin did that will cause the end of book break up I’m assuming is coming, and I think you all have been hinting at in the comments. (Thank you for keeping your spoilers to yourself.) (S: Its done a nice job building the fear, our commenters are pros.) She’s interrupted by the arrival of Hardin himself, busting into the room. He asks if he should come back, but Steph tells him to stay. She’s going to go find Tristan and apologize. She thanks and hugs Tessa, and then she and Hardin exchange awkward looks. 

“Hardin turns and gives me a kiss. “You hungry?” 
“Yeah, actually I am,” I tell him. I should do some homework, but I’m actually pretty far ahead. I really have no idea how or when Hardin actually works.”

1- Why should she do homework if she’s ahead?
2- When do YOU do homework, Tesstess?
3- That tacked on “when does Hardin actually work?” is really weird. She may be referencing homework, but since she just found out he has a job, it seems like she’s harping on that (rightfully so) and that thought came out of nowhere. Dinner, homework– WHEN DOES HARDIN DO HIS JOB IT’S A MYSTERY. 

Hardin says after dinner, maybe Tessa can call Karen or Landon and see what he should wear to the wedding. Tessa has a “oh yeah! Landon!!” moment, because of course she wouldn’t think of her “friend” unless someone else mentioned him. She misses that guy she hasn’t thought about at all. Tess says she’s excited for the wedding and Hardin deadpans that he is too. Tessa changes and we mostly read about this so Hardin can say she’s a sexy working lady and a cute college student all in one. 

Samantha: I feel like she doesn’t do enough work to be considered a working lady.

Mari: Excuse you, she’s had an internship for two days, thank you. 

They decide to go to the mall so they can shop and eat. Tessa calls Landon, who is going to go ask Karen and call them back. Tessa says she doesn’t know what to wear either so Hardin tells her she looks beautiful all the time so she tells him that NUH-UH he looks beautiful all the time. 

Bless, bless Landon who calls back and puts us all out of this misery. Landon says that Karen wants Tessa to wear white (?????) (S: Fucking what?) and for Hardin to at least wear dress pants and a tie. They don’t actually expect much from him. Maybe it’s all a sliding scale, like IF he shows up in pajamas BUT he doesn’t break any plates then that is okay. Tess chats with Landon a bit about her new job, but Hardin starts scowling at something. She follows his gaze and sees that Zed, Logan (who?) and some guy Tess doesn’t know are walking toward them. Zed waves and Tessa smiles “before thinking about it.” For that smile, she earns a glare from Hardin. Hardin says he’ll be back and heads off towards his friends. 

Samantha:

Mari: Tessa isn’t sure what to do but keeps talking to Landon about Literature class. Landon says it isn’t the same without her, but at least Hardin hasn’t been showing up either, so he doesn’t have to deal with him. Of course, this is news to Tessa, and she’s concerned, until Landon insinuates that Hardin must’ve dropped because he wants to be near Tessa at all times. This warms Tessa’s heart, I guess, that Landon would think this? Because it isn’t really true. The truth is that Tessa doesn’t know what the hell Hardin does all the live long day. 

Meanwhile, Hardin is super tense, and Tess is getting worried. She hangs up on Landon quickly and joins Hardin and his bros. Zed greets her with a hug, and she hugs him back, but “knows better” than to look at Hardin after the hug. The stranger boy asks Hardin to introduce his friend. Something about the way he says it gives Tessa chills. “I can tell he is not a nice guy.” I mean, probably not, but the guy next to you threw a chair at a yogurt place so. 

Samantha: And is currently making you nervous and second guess your own innocent behaviors.

Mari: Hardin introduces her as his friend, Tessa. Isn’t this like the second time this has happened? Third?

Obviously Tessa is upset, but she tries to hide it. She asks Stranger Boy if he goes to WCU, and he loudly exclaims that he doesn’t do the college thing, but if all the girls look like Tessa, he would reconsider. Tessa prepares for her boyfriend to say something, though I’m not sure if she wants him to defend her of if she’s expecting for him to fly off the jealous handle. Either way, Hardin doesn’t say anything, and Tessa realizes it’s because he’s pretending she’s only his friend. 

Zed says they are going to the docks tonight and invites them to join. Hardin says they can’t. Jace (Stranger Boy) asks why not. Hardin says that Tessa has work in the morning, but he supposes that he can drop by later. Alone. Jace says that’s too bad and smiles at Tess. Hardin clenches his jaw all angry like, but tells Jace that he’ll hit him up later. Tessa stalks away. 

Hardin follows her, but doesn’t call after her or anything. Tessa keeps walking faster until finally she tries to LOSE HIM inside of a Macy’s. Wow. She’s like running around a mall trying to lose her boyfriend… 

Of course, this means we get yet another “Hardin grabs Tessa forcefully” moment. Hardin grabs Tessa by the elbow to stop her and asks what’s wrong. He’s annoyed. HE is annoyed. We soon find out it’s because Tessa hugged Zed. 

Samantha: I… am I losing my mind??? Is this what it feels like?????

Mari: Tessa asks if he’s embarrassed of her. Hardin says of course not. “Are you crazy?” he huffs. I feel crazy at the moment.” This is something I haaaate in these badly told abuse stories posing as romance– when the abuser makes the victim question her sanity. He’s making her feel unreasonable even though the only true thing here is that Tessa has never been as upset as she ought to be. 

Tessa asks why she didn’t get introduced to his friend, especially since he’s been asking her to move in together. She says she’s not going to be anyone’s secret and stomps off. She heads in the direction of the dressing rooms, but Hardin threatens to follow her in there, and she knows he will. So, she heads to the exit and demands to be taken home. 

The car ride is mostly quiet as Tessa thinks about how Zed wouldn’t hide her and actually Hardin never has called her his girlfriend and maybe she should’ve waited to have sex with him until he confirmed they were dating. Hardin asks if she’s done throwing a fit so she yells at him. Hardin lies about just being caught of guard when he called her his friend. Tessa says that if he is embarrassed, she doesn’t want to see him anymore. Hardin doesn’t actually address this and only calls it “fucking ridiculous“, because more invalidation of her feelings. Tess tells him to have fun at his party tonight. Hardin says he isn’t going. He only said he was so Jace would lay off. Tess says that if he isn’t embarrassed of her, he should take her to the party. Hardin says absolutely not. 

They keep yelling at each other back and forth but the long and short of it is that Jace  is a bad dude. Way out of Tessa’s league and even out of Hardin’s league. They aren’t friends, just friendly. He’s one of those guys you don’t say no to. Tessa thinks this means Hardin is afraid of Jace, but he laughs. He isn’t afraid of him; he just doesn’t want to provoke him. Jace likes playing games and if Hardin provoked him, he would turn Tessa into a game. Tessa says it’s a good thing they are just friends, then.

Samantha: So Jace is the James/Jack Hyde character of this book, yes?

Mari: Which means he’s either going to stroll out of a forest at one point OR kidnap Tess. Right? 

Tessa admits to herself that she gets why Hardin did what he did (do you?) but she’s being “childish” because it doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

I know we complain about the stupid micro-chapters, but this chapter was entirely way too long. Why we gotta spend this much time on a fight when Tessa is probably gonna forgive him next chapter? 

 

Next time on After: Tessa forgives Hardin, probably in Chapter 82.