Chapter 40
LUCY
“Guys,I can’t believe I’m doing this. I really don’t think it’s a good idea. Petal, will you turn the car around? Just drop me at the Freekly.”
Petal takes the freeway exit for the hockey arena. “Nope, nope, and nope. You called in sick to work, so you have the morning off, and you are going to take care of this problem.”
I stare out the car window. “I love the way you think, but I’m pretty sure this is hopeless. I’m sure when Tyler sees me, he’ll go running in the opposite direction. In fact, the whole team probably hates me, because I’m sure he’s told them all that went down.”
Holy shit. Imagine. Hated by an entire hockey team. I’ll never be able to go to a party at Petal’s and Rake’s again. I’ll become one of those ‘coffee friends,’ who you only see a couple times a year. Petal and Gilly will tell me about all the fun stuff they do, and I’ll be completely left out because of that one time I fucked that guy over, who happened to be a big-time hockey star.
Petal pulls into the team parking area using Rake’s pass. After she parks, she and Gilly get out of the car and open my door. But I don’t budge.
I don’t even take my seatbelt off.
“I can’t do it,” I say, crossing my arms and looking straight ahead.
In a flash movement, Petal grabs my purse and holds it outside my reach.
“What are you doing?”
She reaches inside and returns with my cell phone. “I know your password, Lu. Remember when we were taking those photos at my party a few weeks back and you gave me your phone so I could take a picture of you and the gang?”
Oh shit.
“Well, I’ve changed the password. It’s different now,” I lie.
Petal swipes up on my phone screen. “Zero-three-zero-five,” she taps out.
“Ha!” she says. “Works just fine. You always use your birthday as your password. And I’ll tell you, Lu, someday your accounts are going to be hacked.” She continues to furiously tap on my screen.
“Yeah, like you’re hacking my phone right now.” I hop out of the car and reach for it.
But she’s faster and backs up out of my reach. I grab for it again, and she dodges me.
“Give me my phone.”
“Hey, Tyler,” she says in a high voice while she’s typing on my phone, “I’m really sorry I fucked up?—”
“C’mon, Petal, don’t do this,” I beg, lunging for the phone again.
This time, she takes off running across the parking garage, still trying to type.
Oh my God. Are we really going to do this?
“Gilly, lock the car, will ya?” she yells and heads for the stairwell.
I run after her, desperate to get my phone before she completely ruins my life. I chase her into the stairwell and while I don’t know my way around like she does, I hear her Converse chucks clomping on the steps above me. I hustle up the stairs, but it’s pretty much hopeless in my platforms.
Goddammit.
“I know you think you deserve some sympathy,” she yells in the echoing stairwell, “but you’re not getting any from me.”
A door above me, which is out of my line of sight, creaks open and slams shut. I reach the same door seconds later and yank on it.
It’s locked, of course, and I don’t have the key card that Petal does.
“Hey. Let me out!” I holler through the door.
Gilly catches up, breathing hard from the stairs.
“Are you going to behave?” Petal says from the other side.
“C’mon Petal. Don’t be a psycho. I have dirt on you, ya know. How ‘bout I tell Rake about the threesome you had last time we went to Burning Man? Or how you peed your pants all through kindergarten?”
The door flies open. Like I knew it would.
“Shut up,” she hisses. “The locker rooms are only just over there.”
Gilly and I pass through, and Petal gives me my phone back. The damage is done.
“I’m still tempted to tell Rake about the two guys you fucked.”
Petal shakes a finger in my face. “It happened long before I knew him, and besides, it would probably turn him on. So do it!” she says.
A security guard appears behind Petal. “Ladies, can I ask what’s going on here?”
Petal swings around. “Oh, hi George. Just goofing off with my friends,” she says sweetly.
“All right, Mrs. Hanson. Just try to keep it down. The guys are finishing up a meeting.” He walks away.
“Mrs. Hanson? What the fuck?” I say.
“Well, I am married to someone named Hanson. And the guard doesn’t know my real last name. So he can call me Mrs. Hanson. What’s the big deal?” she scoffs.
“Lucy. Hello,” a heavily accented voice says.
We turn around to find Daphne, that woman from the dressy party who was making the moves on Tyler. She seems to be lurking, I suppose waiting for Chuck. She has a skin-tight beige dress on that, from a slight distance, makes her look like she’s wearing nothing.
What is with this woman?
“Daphne. Hello. Didn’t expect to see you here.” She’s staring down the girls. “Have you… have you met Petal and Gilly?” I ask because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“I haven’t. Hello. You must be the Petal who had the party a few weeks back. The one I wasn’t invited to.”
Petal frowns. “How could I invite you? I don’t even know you.”
Daphne lifts her chin with an indignant sniff. “Well, Chuck, my boyfriend was invited. But he said I was not.”
Oh, damn. Yeah, I saw Chuck at that party and I’m pretty sure he would not be in agreement with Daphne over her claimed boyfriend/girlfriend status.
Psycho alert.
“You’re all so smug, aren’t you?” she hisses.
“What did I ever do to you—” Gilly starts to say.
But Daphne interrupts her, turning to me. “Did you know, Lucy, that Tyler made a bet with the guys against you? They said he can’t manage to date a woman for ninety days, and he swore he could. You were the first woman he saw when he made the bet, so he went after you. When the ninety days are up, he’s done with you.”
The hallway becomes silent, so silent that all can be heard is the distant hum of the building’s giant HVAC system. I stand there, staring at Daphne, waiting for a pit to open in the ground and swallow me whole.
Actually, I’m wishing the ground would swallow me whole. That would solve a lot of my problems.
Daphne’s words bounce around inside my head, playing over and over as if hearing them once was not enough and I get to relive them several more times before I get my shit together and figure out what to do.
There is a hand on my arm and I turn to see it’s Petal’s. “I’m sure it was just a joke, Lucy. I’m sure it didn’t mean anything.”
I shake her off. “Did you know? Did you know this?”
She jumps back, a frightened look on her face. “No! Of course not.”
Could it be true?
All that time Tyler and I spent together must have been a total farce. The fun stuff we did. The sexy naked times we had.
It was all bullshit.
Just a game, at least to him. I was an amusement for him and his friends.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly chilly.
“He lied to me,” I say to no one in particular.
“That’s right, Lucy. All these pro hockey players are fucking assholes. Sorry you had to find out the way you did,” Daphne says.
I look at her. She’s not sorry. In fact, she’s enjoying this more than anything else she’s enjoyed in her whole miserable life.
And I’d love to smack the smug right off her overly made-up face.
Petal puts an arm around my shoulder. “Lu, let’s get out of here.”
Without an answer from me, she steers me toward the stairwell door that we just came from, her on one side and Gilly on the other.
We take the stairs at a slower pace than we did minutes ago, which is a good thing because my eyes are filled with tears.
I’m not going to cry, though. I don’t deserve to.
What Tyler did to me is on par with what I did to him. I have no reason to be mad, because I’m no better.
We’re both just a couple of fuck-ups.
Who maybe even deserve each other.