22. Felicity
22
FELICITY
I stared at the TV screen in shock. This wasn’t just salt in my wound, it was lemon juice. Battery acid.
Nuclear waste.
After the nightmare in the park with Cameron yesterday, watching Steven charm his way through an interview on The AM Show made me feel like the entire world was against me. Okay, maybe not the entire world, because I had a pretty vocal majority of support online from women who kept calling Cameron “Boss Baby.”
But still.
This interview was the last thing my battered spirit needed.
Steven had clearly hired a stylist because his teeth were whiter, his hair looked coiffed, and he was wearing a burgundy cashmere sweater he wouldn’t have been caught dead in back when we were together. The changes made him come across like one of those reality TV personalities: all style, no substance, spouting off the same practiced lines on every show they appeared on.
“Congrats to you, Steven,” the host, Jody Richards, said as the segment began. “ Unhinged Heart is a mega-hit!”
“Boo,” I said under my breath, because Nina was still asleep for some reason.
“Yeah, it sure is,” Steven grinned at her, trying to look humble. “It’s so rewarding when hard work is acknowledged. I’m really gratified by the response.”
“I bet!” Jody said. “And am I hearing rumors about a possible film adaptation?”
My jaw dropped. No, please no.
“I can’t say a word about that,” Steven laughed flirtatiously and mimed locking his lips. “But I’ve heard the rumors, too. All I’ll say is we have to wait and see. Stay tuned!”
“Well, I’m on pins and needles about that possibility!” Judy adjusted her expression from a wide smile to faux concern. “Now let’s shift gears a little, Steven. Obviously, your book is a fictionalization, but it’s based on your real experiences from before you and Kira got together, is that right?” she said in a gentle tone.
The camera cut to Kira, who looked like someone had pieced together the best parts of every popular influencer of the moment. Smooth chestnut hair that gleamed under the studio lights, big black eyes ringed with a feather duster’s worth of eyelashes, a mouth of gorgeous Chicklet teeth.
“Yeah,” Stephen said, frowning at the floor. “Honestly, I was really freaked out after I broke up with Felicia. She was unhinged about me, hence the title of the book, and I wasn’t sure what she was capable of.”
I yelped at the screen in anger as Kira reached over to grab his hand.
“Were you scared for your life?” Jody asked.
Steven chuckled. “I mean, no? Look at me, Jody, I’m not exactly a weakling.” He laughed harder at the thought of it and Kira joined in. “Physically, I wasn’t worried at all. Felicia was a large woman, but I’m a much bigger man. No, it was the mental torture Felicia put me through that had me on edge. And I didn’t know if she was capable of hurting Kira. My princess is like a baby bird, look how tiny she is! Isn’t she precious?”
Kira giggled as Steven held up her delicate wrist as proof of her unthreatening petiteness as compared to my hulking big-lady-ness.
“No, but seriously,” Steven continued. “I was also worried that Felicia could somehow damage my good name in the publishing world by convincing trolls to sabotage my reviews. She worked in social media—she knows how to game the system.”
I winced, remembering how Cameron had offered to get the buzz behind the book killed. Back then, he’d seemed like he gave a damn about me. But then, there was a time when I believed Steve loved me—so maybe I was just hopelessly na?ve when it came to love.
Jody turned to Kira. “You had to be concerned, Kira. I’m sure Felicia saw you as her replacement. Competition. You’re a stunning woman; who wouldn’t feel threatened by you? Did the two of you ever meet?”
“No,” I screamed at the TV, answering for her. “We didn’t meet because I was already over that jackass by the time the two of you got together! Steven’s timeline is just one of the many things that are total and complete fiction !”
Nina came running into the room still dressed in leggings and froze with her hands in karate position. “What’s going on in here? Who are you yelling at?”
I wordlessly pointed at the screen.
“Oh,” she said, her shoulders slumping when Steven’s stupid face appeared on screen again. “Shit. He made it to The AM Show ?”
“He’s made it to every show.”
Nina stared at the TV. “He looks plastic.”
“Right?”
“And she looks, um…”
“Amazing,” I sighed. “Just say it.”
“ Manufactured ,” Nina corrected. “She’s very put together, but she looks bored out of her mind. See how her eyes are kind of glazed over? My guess is, she checked out of the relationship months ago, but then the book became a hit, and now she’s just sticking around for the free publicity.”
Could she be right? I took a closer look at Kira and saw her try and fail to hide a grimace when Steve called her “honeybun.” Huh. Maybe everything wasn’t so perfect in paradise after all. It didn’t make what he’d done to me any less humiliating, but there was a hint of satisfaction in knowing that his life might suck at least a little bit, too. Call me petty, but I’ll take my schadenfreude where I can find it.
Nina joined me on the couch, wrapping me in a hug before she leaned over me to grab the remote and turn off the TV. “That’s enough of that !”
“Thank you,” I sighed. “It was a car crash that I couldn’t stop staring at.”
Nina squeezed my hand in solidarity.
“Sort of my life these days, just a series of rubber-necking car crashes,” I sighed. I closed my eyes, hoping it might prevent them from welling up. “What’s the world saying about the girl who got dumped on a livestream?”
“Stop,” Nina chastised me. “He didn’t dump you during it. No one knows what happened afterward but the two of you. And the only person who looked bad in that video was Cameron.”
The ache in my chest returned.
“He’s a terrible person,” Nina continued. “I told you how he talked about Tyler. What kind of friend says those sorts of things?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, it doesn’t sound like him at all. He treats Tyler like a brother. Better than a brother, based on how he acted about Aiden and Megan. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Um, why are you standing up for him?” Nina punched me in the arm.
“You’re right,” I replied glumly. “I’m done talking about him. Thinking about him.”
“Good,” Nina said, hopping up off the couch. “I need to keep you busy today, so meet me in the kitchen once you’re dressed.”
“What do you mean? And why are you still in your comfy pants? You have to leave for work in like thirty minutes.”
“I’m off today, just like you.” she replied, her eyes going soft. “I hated the thought of you calling in sick and spending the day all by yourself, feeling miserable. I’ll be your comic relief, to keep your mind off, uh, everything .”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You did that for me?”
“Lis, of course I did. I will always be here for you when you need me. In the treehouse, our dorm room, here, in our future bookshop, and beyond. It’s you and me, kid.”
I wanted to cry, but this time they were happy tears.
“Neen,” I jumped off the couch and ran to her with outstretched arms. “Thank you!”
She folded me into a hug, and we clung to one another for a few seconds. “Fuck both of them.”
“Yes, fuck them,” I agreed. “Now, what are we doing in the kitchen today? Brownies? Cupcakes?”
“Barley soup!”
I made a gagging face.
“Stop it,” she chastised. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want it. Anyway, it’s not all for us. There’s someone else I know who had a rough day yesterday.”
She headed for the kitchen, and I followed behind her. “Don’t say Tyler.”
Nina whipped around to face me. “And why not?”
“C’mon, he’s a mess, we both know that,” I said gently. “Cameron said as much. I thought you weren’t going to get involved with him.”
“Tyler is going through a tough spot right now, so I want to be a friend to him, nothing more.”
“Neen…” I gave her a pointed look.
“ What ? He needs to know he has people in his corner! I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just want to be there for him. Anyway, I know he’s not in the right headspace to get involved in a relationship, so don’t worry. This is friendship soup and nothing more.”
“I hope he knows that.”
Nina shrugged and started digging through the cabinets. “Where’s the big pot?”
“We have like one cabinet big enough for it. If it’s not there then I have no clue.”
“Ah, I know where it is,” she exclaimed. “I used it to dye those white velvet shorts I thrifted! It was my dunk tank.”
“You couldn’t use a sink or tub?” I laughed at her.
She jogged to her room. “It didn’t occur to me. Anyway, I used beet juice, so it was totally food-safe.”
“How did they turn out?” I asked.
“Revolting pale pink, but it was a cool experiment.”
While Nina rifled through her room, I scrolled through the streaming movie options and finally settled on Bridget Jones’s Diary even though we’d both seen it a trillion times. The Universal music started, and I heard a whoop echo out.
“ Yes ,” she said, holding the pot above her head triumphantly. “Soup and Darcy day. Perfection.”
The movie would be the perfect background noise as we worked. The TV was visible from our kitchen, but we didn’t even need to watch it to absorb the rom-com vibes. Although I realized too late I probably should’ve picked a movie that didn’t focus on a perfect happily ever after, since mine was in the trashcan.
We met in the kitchen and Nina started pulling out all the ingredients from the cupboard.
“You do realize we could just send food to him?” I asked as I watched her pile up vegetables on the counter. “You don’t have to go through all of this.”
She was shaking her head before I even finished the sentence. “Anyone can do that. I want to show Tyler I care for him, and that I’ll put in the work.”
I glared at her.
“As a friend ,” she added quickly.
“Hmm,” I sniffed. “Okay.”
“Make yourself useful,” she said. “Start dicing onions, please.”
“This is supposed to be a day of moping and napping,” I complained, dragging my feet over to where she’d set up the cutting board. “Why are you forcing me to work?”
“Because I want you to be too busy to feel sad. The only tears you should be crying today are because of those onions. Now, dice!”
“Okay, okay,” I laughed.
Meanwhile, Bridget fumbled and charmed her way through the movie, and we yelled out lines about stuff like well-timed blow jobs. Focusing on the work of peeling potatoes, mincing garlic, and chopping carrots was indeed a great way to not think about the way Cameron had drop-kicked my heart the day before. Before long, our cozy apartment was filled with the scent of a homecooked meal. Nina and I sat on the couch and watched the final few moments of the movie with tears in our eyes.
“Ugh,” I smacked the couch. “Why doesn’t real life turn out like that? Kissing the perfect man in a swirl of snow, with Van Morrison crooning in the background?”
“In your zebra-print undies,” Nina added.
“It’s not fair ,” I pouted. “I really thought it was happening for me. Under the most unusual circumstances, of course.”
“Hey, fake dating is a thing in our world. How many romances have we read with that plotline?”
“Those are fiction,” I fired back at her. “And that’s where that whole idea should have stayed. Now I know better than to believe it can happen for me. I’m not that lucky.”
“So let’s focus on what can happen,” Nina replied. “The shop!”
I rolled onto my stomach and balled up a pillow under my chest. “Oh, I love thinking about that.”
“Same! The dream we’re making a reality. Everything is falling into place!” Nina paused to frown. “Well, everything but the location. We’ve got our work cut out for us finding a place.”
“It’ll happen, I feel it in my bones.”
“What’s the timeline looking like for you?” she asked.
I frowned and dropped my head to the pillow. “I’m not sure now. Everything was on track for me to have saved up enough in another few months, thanks to Veritique and all the bonuses, but I feel like there’s no way I can keep working there. It’s too messy. And I’m not sure how it would be seeing Cameron every day.”
I sniffled, because even just saying his name brought all of the dark feelings back.
“Listen, don’t make any snap decisions right now,” Nina cautioned. “Don’t do something you might regret, like deciding to quit. I mean, you have to admit it’s a pretty sweet gig.”
“It was a sweet gig,” I corrected. “Until my boss and fake boyfriend broke my heart.”
“Aw,” Nina said. She leaned over to rub my shoulder. “You know, what happened kind of reminds me of that scene in Betting on the Baron .”
I frowned at her. “That’s a Regency romance. Cameron’s hardly landed gentry.”
“No,” she drew out the single syllable. “But he does run an empire his family founded. And just like Baron Bartholomew Segrave, he lost his shit in front of a huge audience. The Baron, in front of the ball attendees, and Cameron in front of, well…”
“The whole world?” I added helpfully.
Nina giggled. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I forgot how that one ends. Is the baron the one who bought all of those horses for Lady Alva?”
She shook her head. “No, Baron Segrave won back the plot of land that used to belong to Alva’s great grandparents. The ancestral grounds her family had to gamble off. He gifted it to her and wanted nothing in return. But you know what she gave him?”
“Her virginity?” I laughed.
“No! They had sex the night of the big snowstorm. Did you even read the book?” Nina sniffed at me. “Lady Alva gave him the freedom to be himself. To make mistakes. He was held to such an impossible standard that it was hobbling him, but the woman he loved allowed him to be fully human, fuck-ups and all. Now that’s what I call romance!”
I sighed. “It’s like the definition of love. Accepting someone for who they really are.”
A silent tear slid down my cheek.
“Oh no. I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have gone down this path. Let’s talk about alien sex! Vampires! Werewolves!” Nina poked my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I rubbed the tears out of my eyes. “I want our romance section to be no-holds-barred. All love accepted, no kink-shaming.”
“Exactly!” she cheered. “And no ‘guilty pleasures.’ If you like it, it’s a pleasure.”
“I’m in,” I cheered weakly.
The post-stress fatigue was settling in my bones. I just wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes.
“Oh no!”
I woke up with a startled snort when Nina’s voice echoed out of the kitchen. I hadn’t even realized I’d dozed off. Nina was in the kitchen clutching the pot lid, staring at the barley soup.
“What’s wrong? Did it burn? It doesn’t smell burned.”
I hurried to the kitchen and joined her, staring into the simmering pot. My jaw dropped open when I saw what had set her off.
“Neen…are those potatoes …”
“Purple?” she said. “Yeah, they are.”
She stared at me.
“But… how ?” I asked.
“The beet dye I made,” she moaned. “I must not have scrubbed the pot as well as I thought? The white potatoes picked up the remaining color. Oh my god, I ruined it! All that work!”
“No, no, the rest of it looks fine,” I said. I grabbed a wooden spoon from the jar by the stove and spooned out a potato. “And it smells amazing.”
“Careful, it’s steaming,” Nina warned.
I blew on the light purple potato, then took a cautious bite. Nina watched me chew with a worried expression.
“And?”
I chewed. “And, it turns out leftover beet dye is more decorative than flavorful. It tastes great—no hint of beets at all!”
“Are you serious?”
She grabbed the spoon and dug a potato out of the mix, then blew on it.
“Oh my gosh I’m so relieved,” she said as she chewed with her mouth open, because she couldn’t wait until the potato had cooled off. “It’s yummy!”
“I guess life does imitate art,” I said, nodding toward the TV.
Nina frowned at me for a moment, then realization spread across her face. “Bridget’s blue soup!”
We laughed together even though I knew deep down that life didn’t imitate art in the important ways.
There was no cinematic happily ever after waiting for me.