When my bell rings a half hour later, this time it really is Tess. She comes bearing a bottle of vodka and a huge purse that looks stuffed full. I raise an eyebrow at the purse as I invite her in.
“I read into the tone of your text and figured this was going to be a drinking night, so I brought an overnight bag just in case.” She sashays past me and drops her bag on the floor. “Drink first or talk first?”
I nod toward the vodka. “That just seems like a ridiculous question.”
She laughs and twists the top off the bottle, takes a swig, and passes it to me. I take a shot, too.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“The short version is Brian and I are done. Oh, and I slept with Mark Ashton again and he’s in love with me but love isn’t enough.”
She stares at me for a few long beats without speaking. She doesn’t even blink as she tilts her head. “Wait...what?”
I nod to my couch and we both head that direction. She brings the bottle with her, and as we pass it back and forth, I spill the entire sordid story from start to finish, including the fact that Brian just stopped by here with an apology I never accepted.
I don’t mention the pumpkins, and I’m not sure why. I guess it sort of feels like payment for all the sex, which it isn’t, but I’m also not giving it back. Two thousand dollars is a lot of money for someone like me.
I take another sip of vodka. “Mark isn’t ready for a real relationship. And then he had this snap with another girl.”
No matter how much I try to believe the photos that appear on his social media accounts almost every night are from the pre-Reese days, I can’t help but believe some of the women he’s been with have to be more recent. Wouldn’t someone somewhere along the way say something if they were all old photos? Wouldn’t someone find some new photos to post to prove he wasn’t wherever Penny says he was?
Did Penny release those photos of him the night he went to Sevens when I was in Chicago?
I can’t help but wonder if someone else’s hidden agenda was at play...namely, Brian’s. I clearly remember him talking quietly in a hallway while I got ready for bed. Is it possible he was setting us up?
“Snap?” Tess’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
“Snapchat. He snapped a picture of him with some girl and sent it to everyone in the world. He’s already moving on.”
She takes the bottle from my hand. “Dick move. How did the snap make you feel?”
I pause and let her question sink in. I let myself really feel for a second, and only one word comes to mind. “Devastated.”
The word hangs between us for a beat, and then I change the subject. “How have you been? Are you still seeing Jason?”
“On and off. He bought a house not too far from Beck’s new place.”
“Things are going good?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Things are going.”
“Not good?”
“I like him,” she says. “And I’m pretty sure one of us will fuck it up.”
Her words remind me a lot of Mark’s reason for running away from me.
“How?”
“I’m not cut out for a relationship. I’ll sleep with someone else and pretend it was because we haven’t labeled anything yet or I’ll push him away or I’ll do something stupid.”
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet.” I say the words softly to lessen their blow.
She lifts a shoulder and she won’t meet my gaze. “Maybe not.” She blows out a breath. She isn’t one to allow people to see her vulnerable side. She can talk about sex all day, but when it comes to emotions, she gets uncomfortable.
It isn’t until the next morning that I bring up the whole reason I asked Tess over in the first place.
We both fell asleep on my couch watching a marathon of romantic comedy movies, and I wake up with a stiff neck and a headache from too much vodka.
As soon as I stand up, Tess jerks awake. “Fuck,” she mutters as she rolls her neck.
“What?”
“My neck hurts.”
“Have Jason massage it out,” I mumble.
She rolls her eyes. “Let a girl wake up before you start in on that shit again.”
“You could’ve slept in the guest room.”
“You could’ve slept in your own room,” she shoots back.
“Fair enough. Speaking of which, I have a favor to ask. It’s actually why I invited you over last night.” I stand up and use both of my hands to attempt some self-shoulder massaging.
She raises a brow then leans her head back against the couch. “What?”
“Can I crash with you a while?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Jill’s moving in with Becker and our lease is up.”
“Of course.” She sits up a little straighter. “My guest room is yours. My place is small, but we’ll make it work.”
“Thanks.” I head toward the kitchen to get some coffee going.
She stands and stretches. “I should get going.” She disappears down my hallway, presumably to use the bathroom. I’m glad to have a place to live, but I’m already wondering how this will change the dynamic between us.
* * *
I spend the weekend packing boxes. Jill let our rental company know we won’t be renewing our lease, and they offered us our full deposit back if we move out a month early. We jumped at the chance, so I only have a couple weeks to get packed and moved just as a new school year begins.
It’s Sunday night, the night before teachers go back to school, when the doorbell rings. I’m in the middle of pulling everything out of our kitchen cabinets and the place is a disaster—as am I. The counters are filled with cups and bowls and plates as I put Jill’s things on one side of the kitchen and mine on the other. I’m not expecting anybody, and I’m surprised when I open the door to find my ex-boyfriend standing there.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, opening the door and motioning for Justin to come in.
“Tradition,” Justin says. He hands me a binder. “It’s your turn.”
I laugh, take the binder from him, and motion him in. He steps into my home—a place where he used to be welcome, where he used to stay all the time like it was a second home to him.
We worked together at DLHS for two years before we started dating, and I remember the first meeting when we started to get to know one another. We were forced to group with teachers from other subject areas, bored stiff at a faculty training as we learned nothing new. He passed me a note, and I wrote back. Then we started coming up with actual methods for critical thinking we could both use in our classes, and a few weeks later, I put all our ideas in a binder and had a student drop it off in his classroom. Over the years, we both added new ideas to it—things any teacher could use in any classroom, regardless of the subject matter. We’d add silly notes or doodles, too, and we’d send someone over to deliver it. It became tradition to drop it off at the other’s house the night before we returned to school, filled with all sorts of ideas we came up with over the summer.
And now it’s sitting on my counter and I sort of wonder what new content he’s added to it.
“What’s with the boxes?” He nods toward the wall lined with them.
“I’m moving,” I say.
“Why?”
“Jill’s moving in with her boyfriend and I’m moving in with Tess.”
His brows draw down. “With Tess?”
I chuckle. “I forgot how much you never liked her.”
“I never said that,” he says defensively.
I tilt my head to the side and narrow my eyes at him. “Actually, you did once. You had way too much beer that night, but I distinctly remember you telling me she was loud and obnoxious.”
He has the grace to look a little embarrassed. “I said that?”
I nod. “It’s a fair assessment, but I love her anyway.” I get back to work in the kitchen as I sort through a bunch of shot glasses we don’t even use anymore.
“Do you need some help?” he asks.
I lift a shoulder. “If you want to make me some new boxes, I wouldn’t say no.” I nod over to the tape gun and the flat cardboard. “You want a drink?”
“I’ll take a beer if you have one.”
I nod and pull out a beer for him and a bottle of water for me. He sets to work on the boxes. We’re both quiet for a while as we work. I finally clear my throat and blurt the only thing I can think of. “Tell me about your new girlfriend.”
His eyes light up, and he doesn’t even need to say a word before I know he’s in love with her. She’s the lucky girl he’ll marry someday. “Her name’s Alex and she works at the science center. She’s a program specialist.”
“She’s a science nerd like you?”
He laughs. “Yeah.”
“How’d you meet?”
“She organized our entire science summer camp. We’d talk while the kids explored the science center, and I asked her to dinner on the second day.”
“Cute.”
“We’ve spent every day together since.”
“Sounds pretty serious.”
He tapes another box, the loud sound of the tape gun interrupting another beat of quiet between us.
“It is. I’m pretty sure I’m going to marry her.” He blows out a breath and looks up at me.
“You are?” I ask. “After a couple months?”
He nods. “Crazy, right? But it just feels different.”
I give him a small smile. Sometimes it doesn’t take long to fall all the way, and I was just there. “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m sorry about how things went down between us.”
“It’s okay, Justin.” I’m not sure I would’ve said that four or five months ago, but everything is so different now. “I moved on. We both did.”
“I’m glad. But can I ask what happened to you?” he asks.
My first inclination is that I don’t want to talk about it with my ex. But my second thought is that I could use a friend. When I look at him, I see a lot of good memories, but I don’t feel love in the pit of my stomach or the searing heartbreak any longer. I only see a person who cares about me, and I can’t see anything wrong with confiding in someone who’s just a friend. Some male perspective might help me wade through the hurt swimming in my chest.
My eyes fill with unexpected tears. “You broke my heart. It started to heal, and then I met someone new, and then he and his brother proceeded to shatter it.”
Justin drops the box he just taped. “He and his brother?”
I nod and keep my focus on the plates on the counter. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m sorry you were hurt,” he says.
I draw in a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“And I’m sorry I hurt you first.”
I tilt my head as I stare at my ex. He’s still handsome. I wouldn’t want to be a teenager in his class—I’d be embarrassed I suck at science as much as I do in front of a guy that good looking. But I don’t feel that spark, not anymore. All my sparks are reserved for one rock star I can’t have. “I’m glad you did.”
He looks surprised. “Why?”
“Because if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met Mark.”
“Mark?”
“One of the brothers.” I leave out the fact that it’s Mark Ashton we’re talking about. After I told my mom, I realized I can’t talk about him and have an unbiased conversation when I toss his name around.
“What about the other brother?”
“Brian. He turned out to be someone I never thought he was.” I think of the pumpkins sitting in my jewelry box on my dresser. I need to go cash those in, but they also symbolize the fact that it’s possible Brian isn’t as bad as I’ve made him out to be in my mind.
“Sounds like an adventurous summer.”
“It was, but I’m ready to leave Reese’s Summer of Sin behind me.”