Filthy English

Lulu dragged along beside me as we hopped in the elevator and headed to her room on the twelfth floor. I was on the fifteenth in the honeymoon suite. It sucked we were so far apart, but the hotel had had limited rooms to choose from considering we’d made her reservations at the last minute. She’d been the one that had insisted on separate rooms, mostly because she wanted me to get lucky. And she had plenty of money since her parents were big in the country music scene in Nashville.

She leaned against the wall of the elevator, obviously exhausted as she gazed at her phone, checking social media. Her mouth was uncharacteristically turned down. She suddenly straightened. “What the heck?”

“What?” I craned my neck to see what she was looking at, but she swiped the photo away on Instagram. “Was that Hartford?” I asked, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach.

“Shit. Yes.”

“Is he with someone?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. You know how hard it is to interpret social media. It’s fake and filtered. You can’t believe half of it.”

I scowled. “Show me the pic or I’ll just bring it up on my own phone.”

Sighing, she scooted over next to me and swiped her phone back to the photo. It was Hartford at Cadillac’s, one of the local college bars at Whitman. Next to him—right on top of him—wearing an overly brightly smile was a perky blonde with super white teeth.

“That’s Katrina Somebody. She’s in most of his pre-med classes,” I said, clicking on the picture, taking in every single pixel, looking for large pores or a flaw on her perfect face.

Was she prettier than me? Smarter? Funnier?

Bottles of beer littered the table and several people photo-bombed in the background. Were they together, together?

I searched Hartford’s smile, his eyes, looking for a clue. His sandy-blond hair had recently been trimmed and his jaw was shaven. Wearing a plaid button-down shirt I’d never seen before, he radiated confidence; no sign of the conflicted guy who’d told me he needed to think about us before he made a final commitment.

Lulu shrugged. “He captioned it #studybuddy #goodtimes.”

I flattened my lips, studying how Katrina’s hand curled around his arm, how his head tilted in her direction.

I looked at the date of the posting. Our wedding night.

Emotion poured in, making my chest freeze. I took deep breaths and braced myself against the cold wall of the elevator.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just the guy you spent two and a half years on out with someone else.

I wanted to throw up.

“Remi, I’m sorry,” Lulu said, a pained expression on her face. “I’m just messing up your entire night, aren’t I?”

“I’m fine.” I breathed out, handing the phone back to her.

At least I wasn’t tossing out expletives, beating my fists on the walls, or crying. Definitely progress.

“You’re too calm. It’s kinda freaking me out.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You’re trying to figure it out and put meaning to it, but more than likely, it’s just a random pic.”

“He looks happy. She looks happy. I think they’re together. Maybe I wasn’t the one for him and he saw it.” I bit my lip hard. Blinked.

Her face reddened in anger. “If that asshat cheated on you, I’ll freaking kill him when I see him. . . . dammit . . . he’s such a gargantuan ass! He probably goes to some kind of asshat convention each year in, I don’t know, Asshat, Texas.”

“Tell me how you really feel.” I sent her a weak smile.

She nudged her head at the pic. “He’s black and white and you’re digital color, babe. You can do better.”

“Like who?”

“I may have had more than my fair share of martinis tonight, but I definitely noticed sparks between you and Dax. It’s weird. He’s starting to grow on me. It’s just—tonight at the diner, the way you looked at him and the way he looked at you. I want a guy to look at me like that.”

“It’s lust. That’s all Dax has to offer anyone. He only wants to have fun.”

She stewed on that as the door swished open at her floor. “I can walk you to your room and we can talk for a while if you’re still wide awake?” she offered.

“No. Get some sleep. Don’t worry about me.”

She grudgingly left. I waited until she got in her room, and then I popped back in the elevator and pulled out my phone, which had been turned off. I turned it back on, but instead of getting on Instagram and stalking Hartford, I pulled up my phone contacts and gazed at the cell number Dax had added before we’d left the diner. I snorted when I saw he’d added his name as Sex Lord—but with a question mark. Was this Dax’s version of humility?

My finger hovered over the call button.

What would I say?

The elevator pinged for my floor and I got off. With a deep exhalation, I tucked my phone back in my clutch while at the same time digging for my key card.

“Where is it?” I muttered, riffling through the zipped side pockets.

Awareness that I wasn’t alone in the narrow hallway seeped in, and my eyes swept the area. No one was going to or leaving their room, but at my door I saw a male figure reclining on the floor, his head dipping into his chest as if he were asleep.

What was he doing here?

I walked over to him and bent down.

“Dax, wake up.” I shook his shoulder gently. “Hello?”