Chapter 33 – pippa
PIPPA
Best friends don’t make you explain things when you’re crying so hard, you can barely get a sentence out.
They hold you and let you cry. Then, they kick their fiancé out and make them stay with one of his friends so you can cuddle in their bed and watch old Disney movies until you fall asleep, still crying somehow.
Then, in the morning, they bring you waffles and coffee and a jug of water to help you reintroduce all the fluids you cried away.
In other words, Cat is the best friend in the fucking world.
“Should I have ordered chocolate chip waffles instead?” she asks, her mouth half-full of bacon.
I shake my head. “Nah. You were right to go with plain Belgian. Why mess with perfection?”
“Thank you for validating my choices.”
I snuggle deeper into my purple blanket. Cat snuck down into Ryan’s apartment last night to get it for me because, again, best friend in the world.
“So, are you feeling fortified by caffeine and breakfast?” she asks, her bright smile looking a little forced.
“As much as I’m ever going to be,” I sigh. “Is this where you make me tell you about what happened last night?”
“We’ll get to that. I wanted to get this part over with first, before you charged your phone and saw it yourself.” Cat passes me her phone, opened to the Toronto Tea page. “And know that I don’t care what it says. I’m on your side, Pips.”
Rising Star Writer Having Lurid Affair With Her Stepbrother?
Pippa Murphy, the Belladonna columnist behind the viral “12 Dates of Christmas” articles, has been spotted having a heated argument with her stepbrother, Ryan Archer, poker star and famed Toronto playboy.
The noted womanizer has apparently set his sights on Murphy, attempting to manipulate her into giving up writing the column which launched her immense online popularity.
We hear Archer gave Murphy an ultimatum, demanding that she give up dating other men while refusing to demonstrate any personal commitment to her.
This is the latest incident in Archer’s long campaign for Murphy’s attention.
He’s used gifts and vacations on top of verbal and physical attention to bring his stepsister closer to him, only to act cold and dismissive afterward.
It’s a classic case of love bombing, one that Murphy sadly seems to have fallen for.
Fortunately, there seems to be another candidate for Murphy’s affection—a man we will leave unnamed, who was the subject of her most recent column. Hopefully Murphy will kick her stepbrother to the curb in favor of a healthier option.
Readers with more information, contact peppermint@ with your story.
Well, fuck.
Not only has Ryan broken my heart, apparently the entire Internet now knows about it. I guess when it rains, it fucking pours. And how the hell does this ‘peppermint’ always seem to know everything?
“Are you okay?” Cat asks.
“No.” My voice sounds strained. “Ryan and I had an argument last night. I don’t know how much of it you heard—but apparently, somebody must have heard and sold it to them.”
Cat wraps her arm around my shoulders.
“If the Toronto Tea could stop live-blogging my emotional collapse, that would be great,” I mutter. “I’d really like to go back to embarrassing myself in peace.”
“Oh, Pippa.”
I start to scroll down to the comments when she pulls away to wipe a tear from my cheek and she tries to yank the phone from my fingers. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
But it’s too late.
The top one snags my attention. It has hundreds of upvotes.
Ryan Archer: Whoever wrote this article is high if he thinks I’d ever touch my stepsister. Pippa is the complete opposite of my type. Take this fucking trash post down.
I can’t read the replies, because my eyes are too full of tears for me to say anything. I don’t care that Ryan denied the story—it’s not like it made either of us look good. But why did he have to do it like this?
Pippa is the complete opposite of my type.
The words weave between my ribs and stab me right in the heart.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Cat asks.
I shake my head. “There’s no point. Whatever happened between me and Ryan, it’s obviously over now.”
“How about I take our dishes to the kitchen and give you a few minutes to yourself?” Cat suggests. “If you want to take a shower, you can grab any of my clothes from the closet. And if you just want to wallow in your PJs, then that’s okay, too.”
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Cat kisses me on top of the head. “Your phone is charging on the bedside table, in case you were looking for it.”
“Great,” I groan. “I’m sure the texts I’m getting right now are amazing.”
Once Cat’s gone, along with our syrupy dishes, I decide to rip off the Band-Aid and check my phone. When I open it, the adorable picture of Waffle on the lock screen makes me feel better—for a few seconds, anyway.
Brinley
Hey, I read the Toronto Tea. I wanted to let you know that I’m on your side, always. Are you doing okay?
My lips quirk upward. My list of people who still love me after reading the ugly truth about me and Ryan has now doubled, to include both Cat and Brinley. I type a quick reply.
Pippa
I’ve been better. I’ll tell you more at Wine Wednesday.
Her reply comes in quickly.
Brinley
Great. We’ll keep the place open late again. <3
There are also a few emails waiting for me from Ingrid, but I make the executive decision to avoid them for the rest of the day. It’s a holiday, and I don’t need any more pressure than I’m already under.
It’s a sign of how close I am to Cat that I feel no guilt about borrowing her underwear. A hot shower and a fresh set of clothes makes me feel way more human, even if the hem of Cat’s sweatpants comes up to a few inches above my ankle.
I find Cat in the living room, working on a spreadsheet on her laptop.
“Nate has you working on a holiday?” I joke. “His workaholism is really rubbing off on you.”
She smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. Just a fundraising thing I’m working on.”
“Right, funds to feed endangered orphan whales.”
“Exactly.”
I plop down next to her. “I’m ready to talk, now.”
She closes her laptop and sets it on the coffee table. “I think I know what this is about. You want to get bangs again, and you need me to talk you out of it.”
The laugh feels weird coming out of my throat. “How did you know?”
She takes my hand and squeezes it. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
“I’ve been sleeping with Ryan since the White Elephant party. And there are…feelings involved.”
“I feel like I missed something. Don’t you two hate each other?”
“I guess there’s a thin line between hate and…” I don’t make myself finish the sentence.
“And I assume you didn’t tell me earlier because of the stepbrother thing.”
I sigh. “It’s weird, isn’t it? The fact that we’re related?”
“Not really. It’s not like you’ve known each other from birth, and I know that you’ve never seen him like that, as a true brother. It’s not that much weirder than if you fell for a guy you had a crush on in junior high.”
“Exactly, if his dad was married to my mom.” I cover my face with my hands. “God, if Mom ever found out about this…”
“It might be weird for your parents,” Cat admits.
“But for everyone else, I don’t think it’ll be all that shocking.
Especially once they find out you were already a teenager when you met.
I’m more worried about the fact that you’re with a guy who’s spent more than a decade insulting you to your face.
Pippa, are you sure you’re making the best choices for yourself? Are you putting yourself first?”
I lean back against the couch. “I am now. Last night, I gave him the chance to tell me the truth about how he feels about me. And I got it—he wants me, and he cares about me, but not enough. He doesn’t want a real relationship with me.
I don’t know if he thinks our situation is too complicated, or if he’s scared of commitment, or if…
” I take a fortifying breath before I say the hardest part.
“If he doesn’t care about me the way that I care about him. ”
“Maybe it’s like you said,” Cat says gently. “Maybe it’s not about you. Maybe he’s just not capable of it. You remember that Toronto Tea article about him last year? Nate told me it was true.”
I lift a brow, not sure I want to know.
“You know,” she says. “The one about how for a while in white collar circles it was well known that the way to get over someone was to get under Ryan Archer.”
I drop my face into my hands. I did already know that, but…
“How pathetic does it make me that that fact only makes me feel bad for him? Like, all those women just wanted to use him. They didn’t want to get to know him.
They didn’t care about him. He was a ticket punch on their journey to recovery. It’s cruel.”
“Oh, Pippa. Sometimes I forget how big your heart is.”
I sigh. “Regardless, Ryan is not what I should want. I should want a guy like…like Jacob.”
“And instead you got a shameless poker legend with the emotional range of a teaspoon.”
A watery laugh escapes me. “Yeah. And the worst part is, I think he might be it for me, Cat. Not in the cute unrequited crush way, in the ‘I don’t know how to picture the rest of my life without him’ way.”
“Wow.”
She’s taking this all really well considering the magnitude of the bomb I just dropped in her lap and I have to wonder how much of this she’d already picked up on.
“I didn’t mean to give him this much of me…I didn’t think I gave him my heart, but somehow it wound up in his hands, anyway.”
“The question is…” Cat looks at me apologetically. “And this comes from a place of love because you deserve the world…”
I frown.
“What you need to ask yourself is if he’s capable of holding something that important,” she presses a palm to her heart to mime her meaning, “…without dropping it.”
Cat takes my hand, and we sit together in silence for a few minutes while I soak up the love that my best friend gives me so freely. Her question bounces around in my head, trying and failing to answer itself.
“Well, I can’t wear your underwear forever,” I say finally. “And I can’t handle living with Ryan anymore. I don’t trust myself not to fall back into some old patterns if I’m around him. That means I need a new apartment.”
“Haven’t you been looking for places for a while now?”
“I have, but my standards have been way too high before now. Floors, ceilings, windows, doors—all luxuries that I don’t need. Any place that doesn’t also have my stepbrother in it is good enough for me.”
“You’re not moving into a dump,” Cat says sternly.
“If a dump is all that’s available, well, call me Oscar the Grouch, cause I’m moving in. Open up your laptop. Let’s look at apartments.”
We spend the next hour applying online to every place that allows next day move-in.
Cat tries to talk me out of it, but I even apply to a place where I’ll have to walk down a hallway to use a shared bathroom.
Because I’d rather tromp down the hall in a towel and flip flops than face Ryan’s cocky smile again.
When I first see The Place, I assume it’s a scam. A pet-friendly one-bedroom with in-unit washer and dryer, ten blocks from the Belladonna offices? Only two hundred bucks above my budget? Can’t exist.
“I think it’s real,” Cat breathes. “Look, it just got listed today. I bet somebody fell through.”
“It’s too good to be true,” I argue. “I mean, look at that. Recently refurbished kitchen, built-in bookshelves in the living room? It’s a sham.”
“Apply for it,” Cat orders. “Now. If you can’t afford it, I’ll loan you the money.”
I roll my eyes, but I take the laptop from her and start filling out the fields.
“The money should work out, actually. I’ve got my winnings from the White Elephant party for the security deposit, and my raise would help with the rent.
It doesn’t matter, though. No apartment with windows overlooking a flower garden is real. ”
Except after twenty minutes, my phone rings with an unknown number. I pick it up, hoping it’s not spam. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Pippa Murphey?” The voice on the other end is young, female, and stressed.
“Uh, yes, speaking.”
“You just applied for the one bedroom on Wellesley, right?”
My mouth drops open. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. I just saw the listing and I thought it might be a scam. The rent on the website is accurate, right?”
“It’s accurate,” the woman says. “We’re hoping to move quickly on this. I have to ask—are you the same Pippa Murphy who writes for Belladonna?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s me.”
“Seriously? Wow, this is so cool. I’m not trying to fangirl on you, but I’m obsessed with your 12 Dates articles. I swear, I must have gone out with the same CryptoBro as you.”
“Well, then, I’m sorry.” I grin so hard, it hurts my cheeks a little. I know that I technically have fans, but it’s so rare to meet one in real life instead of online.
“Look, I’m supposed to get landlord references, but I think we can skip that. I just want to get someone in the apartment quickly who I don’t have to worry about.”
“I have to ask, why is this place available so quickly?”
“There was a couple that was supposed to move in today, but apparently somebody cheated, they had a big argument, and they broke the lease. The landlord wanted a new renter ASAP, so he dropped the rent a few hundred dollars.”
“Wow. And by ASAP you mean—”
“It means if you can come by tomorrow with a check with first and last month’s rent plus security, you can move in this weekend.”
“Yes!” I squeal. “Yes. Oh my god, I’ve never been happier to hear about a breakup.”
“And thanks to you, I can spend the rest of New Year’s Day at home with my cats,” she says.
“Well?” Cat says expectantly when I hang up.
“The Place is real, and it’s mine! I can move out in a few days.”
“It’s a miracle! I’d say let’s open some champagne—”
“—if I didn’t hate champagne, and if we weren’t getting over the world’s worst hangovers,” I finish.
“Exactly. Do you want to stay in the apartment again tonight, Pips? You can stay in the guest room, or I can make Nate crash at Beau’s place for another night.”
I shake my head. “I’ve intruded enough. Let Mr. Grumpy have his apartment back. Ryan has his big New Year’s Day poker tournament today, so he’ll be holed up on the poker floor all night. I doubt I’ll see him.”
Cat’s brow furrows. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I feel bad making Waffle stay there without me, anyway.”
Between my perfect kitty and the promise of moving into the new place, I’m ready to handle anything.
Even knowing the man I love is just down the hall.