25. Hayworth
TWENTY-FIVE
HAYWORTH
It’s been three days since I’ve seen him. Three days since I’ve been inside him. Three days since I’ve smelled his addictive perfume and his warm embrace, and I’m going crazy.
It’s like having an itch that can’t be scratched and that only makes the desire to scratch harder, more desperate. Which might not be the best analogy but it is on point. And that’s not even the worst part. No. The worst part is that I love this feeling. It makes the promise of being with him even more exhilarating, even more electrifying.
There’s not an hour that goes by I don’t check my phone, wishing there’s an unread message I’ve missed, hoping there’s a new scandalous photo to derail my day and pull my focus away from my life and work and drive me into a horny delirium.
I hate it. I hate feeling like that. As if I’m hooked on him. Because I know that’s how it starts. I know that’s what happens before I lose all control and when I lose control of my own feelings…that’s when it all falls apart.
And yet I already have no power to stop it. I can’t pull back from our fake dates. I can’t pull away from this arrangement. I know it’s the right thing to do but I don’t have the strength to speak it aloud and put an end to it before I lose my heart yet again.
Which is why I’m here on Friday night, waiting for him. I’ve avoided him long enough. I’ve kept myself busy for as long as I could. It might be freezing cold, my limbs might be going numb but I’m here, waiting for him. Longing for him.
I see his car drive around the city park and a few minutes later he walks up to us, up to me and I’m once again drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
He’s wearing a navy-blue coat with a fur lining around the hood and a mustard yellow hat with matching gloves and scarf. His eyes have very fine but perfectly applied eyeliner and his lips are as pink and juicy as I remember them. His cheeks are also rosy red but I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or applied blush. He’s stunning. He looks like a magazine model and I feel so much bigger, so much fuller when he walks up to me and gives me a hug. I feel lucky that he’s chosen me as his mate.
Shit. Fake mate.
Fake date even.
It’s all an act, Hayworth. We’re playing a game here. None of this is real.
I shake my head, trying to clear it of these odd intrusive thoughts and return the embrace trying—and failing—to keep myself and feelings at bay.
“You came,” I whisper.
“Of course. We made plans,” he answers and slowly pulls away from me. Even that feels like a crime.
Fuck! What’s wrong with me?
“I’m sorry for being MIA these last few days,” I say before I can catch myself. Because surely I don’t need to apologize.
We’re not a couple, or an item. We’re not an anything. We’re just hooking up. And pretending to be in love, or something along those lines. There’s nothing in this charade that requires constant contact or me having to apologize for being a busy man and having a job.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I sigh and let him go. Maybe focusing on today’s event will keep me distracted. It will help me not look too deeply into my mind and heart because something tells me I won’t like the answers hiding in plain sight.
“Welcome to the Smash Your Ex Pinata party,” I tell him and step to the side to introduce him to the others.
Wells and a few other members—people who only remember this club when they fail to get a date for Valentine’s day—approach us and I introduce them.
“So you’re the infamous Felix,” Wells says.
“The one and only,” Felix answers and offers Wells his hand but Wells isn’t so quick to reciprocate.
Instead, he inspects Felix top to bottom, measuring him up and I bite down a growl that’s threatening to come out.
“Rumor has it you two are dating,” he grumbles.
Felix sighs and rolls his eyes. “You need to get your information from better sources than Maplewood Matters then,” he says.
Wells chuckles but quickly composes himself. “So it’s not true?”
Felix shrugs. “I think I’d like to stay mysterious,” he answers and bypasses Wells. “So what are we doing here? And why can’t it be inside where it’s warm and toasty?”
Wells watches me as I pass by him too, join Felix and walk with him to the tree where the first of tonight’s pinatas is already hanging.
“No one wants this mess in their place of business, so this is our only choice,” I tell him.
He scans the crowd gathered around the tree and he nods approvingly. “Seems popular.”
“Yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day. Everyone without a partner remembers how much they hate being single today so they come and take out all their frustrations on the pinatas.”
“Better the pinatas than real people,” he mumbles.
I laugh. “You can say that again.”
Before Felix can say anything else, the first person walks up to the middle holding a picture in their hand and she pins it on the pinata, which shows the face of another woman when it spins around.
“Her ex,” I point out before the woman picks up the baseball bat and starts beating the shit out of the pinata.
The crowd starts hooting and cheering her on. Even Felix joins in and when she breaks the pinata and the candy falls to the ground we all erupt in applause. She drops to her knees to collect the candy and passes some of it around before Wells and I get to work on putting up the next pinata.
We watch as two people, a guy and a girl, step up, pin a photo of a man and they start bashing it together.
“Bastard,” he says.
“Motherfucker!” she says.
“Cheater!”
“Two-faced dick!”
“I’m guessing there’s a story there,” Felix mumbles next to me and I chuckle.
“I could probably take a guess,” I say.
Felix laughs and we turn our attention back to the middle of the circle where the couple are enjoying the spoils of their heartbreak and we put another one up before I return back to Felix’s side.
“Why not do this in the Smash Bus?” he asks. “It’s basically the same concept, isn’t it?”
“It is. It’s more accessible this way. And we can piss off a few committee members who think we’re the only ones who hate love,” I reply and Felix turns to watch the next person, pursing his lips and nodding.
He doesn’t say anything for a while and I worry I might have offended him but then he starts cheering people on, so I get over myself and try to enjoy the evening.
“Do you want to go next?” I ask him.
He looks at me with surprise. “But there’s a line.”
I shrug. “Special club leader privileges.”
“But I don’t have a photo.”
“Do you need one?” I raise an eyebrow.
His face tightens and his eyes turn to slits. “Hell no,” he answers and I hand him the bat.
He snatches it from my hand, rushes to the middle where there’s a brand-new pinata swinging from the tree and he slams it right in the middle. And that’s only the first blow. He strikes again and again and again, relentless and breathless until he smashes it into pieces. He gets the loudest applause of all.
“Airhead?” he asks when he returns to me with pockets full of candy.
I take the sweet and sour belt from him and wince from the assault of flavors in my mouth.
“That was awesome,” I tell him. “So sexy to watch.”
“Oh yeah?” He smirks. “When are you up?”
“Oh I don’t usually participate. I’m the organizer.”
“That’s bullshit. You need it. It’s so…so liberating.”
I shrug.
“Oh come on. You clearly have some deep-seated rage brewing inside you or else you wouldn’t have created so many rage room situations for your little club.”
I jolt and grab my chest as if I’ve been shot.
“You wound me when you call my club little,” I fake-cry.
He pats my back. “You’re a big boy. You’ll survive. Now go. Beat the shit out of that pinata.”
And when he puts it that way, how can I say no?
I grab the bat from Wells’s hand, stand in front of the pinata he’s just erected and bash the hell out of it. I let it all out. Jack and his cheating. The heartache. Being fooled again. Being so betrayed by assholes that I can’t ever enjoy love again. Not being able to nurture those feelings I know I’m developing for Felix. Hating the fact that my fear has stolen so much from me and still is. The fact that if it weren’t for my past I might be able to have something meaningful with him. And hating myself for even thinking that.
When the pinata splits in two, I drop the bat, walk back toward Felix.
“I need a drink,” I say, heading straight for The Striped Maple across the street.
“Are you okay?” He rushes to catch up to me and I can see the concern in his eyes but I don’t want to acknowledge it. I don’t want to acknowledge what he does to me and my resolve.
“I’m fine. It’s all part of the evening. Smash your ex’s pinata and get wasted at The Striped Maple. Didn’t I say?”
Which isn’t even a lie. We usually end up in one of the town’s bars, doing shots and shouting at all the loved-up couples.
But tonight I need to drink, because for the first time in a long, long time I want to be one of those couples.