Exploiting Realities

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - THE WORST DAY EVER

"You listen here, Bovino," he growled. "You'll find that it's in your best interest to do what I say."

"And you'll find it's in your best interest to shut the hell up," I said, dismissing his threat.

"Aria's going through a lot," he said, taking another step closer to me, "and she doesn't need an asshole like you screwing with her mind."

I laughed loudly. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You're worried about me screwing with her mind? I'm not the one going around kissing her best friends behind her back!"

He looked at me, shocked at my words. "That's right," I sneered, "I know."

Catching me off-guard, he grabbed the collar of my shirt and dragged me down so that he towered over me. "I don't know how you know about that," he snarled directly into my face, "but we both know how much it would hurt Aria if she found out."

I shoved him away from me, hard. "Well guess what, hot shot? Aria told me about it. Looks like you're out of luck, doesn't it?"

He looked at me, shocked, but then got back to his intimidating expression. "You're lying," he said lowly.

"Am I?" I challanged. "Maybe you failed to remember how close Sweet Scoops is to Aria's house. Maybe she forgot something at school and had to go back for it. Maybe she was at the right place at exactly the right time to see you kissing Livi."

A horrorstruck expression flooded his face, quickly replaced with anger.

"You're the one screwing with her mind, Harvey, so maybe you're the one who should back the hell off. I don't know about you, but I don't want to see Aria heartbroken like she was when she saw you and Livi. And who was there to comfort her? I was. So maybe I'm not bad for her right now. Maybe you are."

I must've gotten him there, because the only response he could think of was throwing his fist in my face.

It caught me completely off-guard, but I was good with my reflexes so I recovered almost immediately and threw mine straight back.

And that's how it started, and it continued. If you ask me, I was definitely winning, but I don't know how long the two of us would've gone at it if Lorelai hadn't come up and pulled us apart.

"What the hell is going on here?!" she demanded, looking at us both disgusted.

Neither of us even tried to justify the situation.

"If this has anything to do with Aria--" she started.

"It has everything to do with Aria," Dillon interrupted her.

Lorelai sighed, disappointed. "How do you two think Aria would feel if she had seen what just happened? Do you think she needs the added stress? I get that the two of you both care about her but did it really have to come to this?"