CHAPTER 41DENISE
CHAPTER 41
DENISE
We were still at work, and it was almost six. I’d somehow convinced Hugh that staying late when I came in late wasn’t breaking our deal. I was scrolling my phone when I saw an email come across my screen from Cleo. She’d forwarded along some announcement:
Them Big Bitches Are Coming to Sippin’ That TeaTea!!!
This Friday at 8PM ET, we’ll be live with Denise and Cleo. Listen as the women in the Gamer Dude Beatdown video sit down with me and talk about what happened that night and what led up to the blowout.
The fuck. Did she just? She didn’t even ask me! I closed out of my email and dialed Cleo immediately. She answered on the first ring.
“Don’t even start, Dennypoo.” Her greeting was meant to make me laugh. She knew I was ready to punch her lights out.
“You didn’t even ask me, Cleo.” Annoyance was starting to drown out the Zen I’d been feeling all day.
“Umm. We talked about it. You said you’d commit to my plan. Voilà. This is my plan. We’ll probably go back to my apartment to record. If Hugh’s place is half as fancy as Lucian’s that would be a bad look,” Cleo was rambling and talking fast.
“You’re not going back to that apartment, Cleopatra.”
Lucian’s muffled voice was in the background, and I heard shuffling against the phone before Cleo swore.
“You’re not running shit. Leave me be, I’m working,” she snapped back.
“I’m not the one running,” Lucian growled, and I pulled the phone away from my face.
“Hey, if ya’ll want to do that freaky shit, can you do it later?” I asked, making sure I talked over their shenanigans.
“Weren’t you late as hell this morning? Probably up all night doing your own freaky shit.” Lucian’s voice was closer, and I scoffed.
“Yeah, what he said!” Cleo chimed in.
I laughed, knowing that I’d been so worn out the night before, I was still surprised I’d made it to any of my meetings today. Thankfully, they weren’t very important because… I had no fucking clue what they’d been about.
“Anyways, the interview is already booked. I’ll be in tomorrow to gameplan it with you, just give me a time.”
Sighing, I opened up my calendar to see my schedule.
“I have a gap in the morning?” I asked, clicking into the meeting invites and reading agendas with the hope that some of these wouldn’t even really be necessary.
“She’ll come in with me. And she’s hanging up now,” Lucian said.
“The hell I am. I’m trying to get the tea, Luce,” Cleo snapped.
Luce? Okay, tomorrow we needed to talk because what the hell was going on over there with those two? Nicknames? Was she running from the dick? I couldn’t believe it. The only thing that Cleo’s ass ran from was commitment.
“Cleo, I’m not going to tell you again.”
I laughed, leaning back, “Oh, Lucian got some bass in his voice, bitch.”
“Fuck you, Denny,” Cleo hissed.
“Nah, I got plenty of dick last night,” I replied, full-on cackling.
“See you in the morning,” Lucian said before the line disconnected.
I was still cackling as I stood and stretched as I reached up and then down. Everything was tender but stretching out helped. Hugh had turned me all the way out last night. If he’d have asked me to breathe fire from my pussy while singing Meatloaf, I would’ve done it. With a smile on my face, a song in my heart, and his hard dick as my microphone.
Everything about him took me to some edge that I didn’t realize I wanted to dance on. I’d spent so much of my life playing by the rules and now here I was, going with the flow. The craziest part was that I’d loved it. When he wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed it just enough for me to get lightheaded, my body shivered in delight. The way his hands played along every inch of my skin, fluctuating between pleasure and pain. I begged for it—pleaded for it. And, after last night, I knew I couldn't live without it.
It was more than Hugh and the way he made my body come alive, this was about me and the journey that I had been on since the world came to life around me. I wasn’t just on a voyage with him, I was rediscovering myself.
When we’d gone to the grocery store, I picked up real butter instead of margarine. I did a heavier makeup look this morning because I remembered how much I loved the contrast of it against my skin.
It was small things, stuff that no one else would notice but me. But they were conscious choices that I made because Curtis had pushed me into changing. He’d slowly chipped away at me with little comments and critiques. Now that I was away from him, I could see it all. And the more I felt…
Free.
Open.
Renewed.
Stupid.
Oblivious.
But mostly, I was fucking furious.
It started that night in the rage room. I’d let it all come out, but it was building again the more I thought about it all. A container of margarine on the shelf. A barely-used brown eyeliner that I’d thrown in the trash.
I knew my rage was natural and important to healing and moving forward, but all I could think of, all I wanted, was to undo it. Go back in time and slap myself. But I was willing to settle for the next best thing: revenge.