8. Jude
JUDE
“Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing?” Mel says.
I click on another image. Kelly’s wearing a black halter neck bikini and pouting at the camera in it.
“If you mean going through my ex-fiancé’s social media and realizing what an even bigger piece of shit he is, then yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
I screw my face up at the fire emoji that Callum’s commented on Kelly’s picture with.
“He posted this on the day we got engaged.” I thrust the screen toward Mel. “Look! The day we got fucking engaged!”
I scroll to another image that Kelly posted a couple of days after, with the caption: maybe I need a hot doctor to take care of me. She’s posing with a ridiculous, fake frown and holding up the tip of her finger that has a paper cut.
His comment is the top one. She’s pinned the damn thing.
‘I could help you with that. Smiling emoji.’
“He could help the entire world by moving to outer space,” I huff. “He’d probably still find a way to be a cheating asshole there.”
Mel looks at me in concern.
“Was I a complete and utter fool? Was it that obvious?” I cry.
I toss my phone down. It’s a free afternoon with no planned activities. I’d give anything to have Declan appear with his cheeky grin and announce we’re all going diving, or on a boat trip, or even swimming with great white sharks minus the cage.
Anything would be preferable to sitting here feeling like an idiot while I unearth more and more evidence of what a total liar Callum is.
I almost married that asshole.
Mel shakes her head as I swallow down a surge of bile.
“No. Absolutely not. He had us all fooled. If anything, he was too perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs, wrinkling her nose. “The way he kisses your dad’s ass all the time. It’s—”
“Like he loves my father more than me? Yeah, I get it.”
If Callum could have married my father instead of me, I think he would have. The esteemed surgeon and his perfect protégé. How wonderful.
“That’s enough!” Mel declares, swiping my phone up. “You are not having this back if all you’re going to do is torture yourself over a man who doesn’t deserve even a second of your thoughts.”
“Confiscating my phone? Who are you, fucking Declan?” I joke.
Mel’s lips curl into a calculating smile. “Nope. But that’s exactly what you’ll be doing tonight.”
I frown. “What? Fucking Declan?”
“Mm-hm.” Her eyes light up. “I saw the way he held your hips when we were practicing on the windsurfing boards.”
“He was showing me how to balance.”
“He was seeing how they’d feel to grip onto as you ride him.”
I snort at the way Mel hitches her brows suggestively.
“Because that’s what you should do. Pin that man down and use his dick like it’s your own personal toy. Trust me, he’ll love it. No guy is going to complain about a hot girl using him as a feel better fuck.”
I shake my head. “Declan’s good-looking, sure, but—”
“But nothing. It’s just sex, Jude. Use. His. Dick.”
I burst into shocked laughter at Mel’s serious expression. “I can’t—”
“Declan?” she calls, spotting him walking up the beach. He’s shirtless and his tanned abs are popping out like a Men’s Health magazine cover.
“All right?” He throws his hand up in a wave.
“Don’t,” I warn Mel in a low breath.
She winks at me.
“You’d think yourself lucky if you got to fuck Jude, wouldn’t you?” she says to him.
“Oh my God,” I murmur, ducking my head in embarrassment.
“Hell yeah. Luckiest guy on the planet,” he calls back immediately. “I’ll take care of you, Jude. Come by later and knock three times, so I know it’s you,” he adds in my direction before chuckling.
“What the hell?” I say after he’s disappeared.
Mel grins like she’s solved all of the world’s problems without even breaking a sweat.
“See? He’d totally let you use him as your vacation dick.” She lies back on her towel like her work is done.
I use her momentary lowered guard to steal my phone back from her. I’m back on Callum’s social media before she realizes I’ve snatched it back.
“What?”
Mel shoots up to a sitting position, looking at the screen.
“That asshole!” she gasps.
The back of my neck flares, burning with incessant rage as I stare at the picture of Callum in our apartment. He’s taken a shot of himself dressed and ready for work.
But it’s not the smile on his face—that looks remarkably authentic considering he supposedly just lost the love of his life a few days ago—that’s caught my attention.
It’s the pair of women’s shoes behind him—Kelly’s Louboutins that I’d recognize anywhere because she couldn’t stop showing them off after she got them for her birthday last month.
I’m here, recovering from being cheated on, while he’s telling our friends that the wedding is merely postponed because I’m ill. And he’s there, in our home… with her.
“Yeah. That asshole.” I seethe, opening up the camera on my phone quickly. “Look sexy and deliriously happy,” I instruct Mel.
I snap a photo of the two of us, impressed with how well I pull off the look when I’m a mess inside. We both look sun-kissed and like we’re enjoying being away in paradise.
I upload it with the caption: Having an amazing time.
It’s all I need to put. Everyone will know Callum’s been spouting bullshit the moment they see I’m not at home nursing some mystery illness.
“If you get it on with Declan, I’ll apply for that promotion at work?” Mel slips in casually.
“That’s blackmail, you know that?”
She shrugs with a smile. “I’d call it an incentive, but whatever.”
I narrow my eyes. She’s been working at her job as an advertising executive for a cosmetics company since finishing college.
But she hasn’t applied for the last two promotions to become a senior, despite being perfect for the role.
She’s an amazing friend who will cheer louder than anyone, but when it comes to her own capabilities, she severely underestimates herself.
I’ve been trying to talk her into going for that role since it came up.
“And you’d go to the interview?”
“Promise.”
I exhale, settling back on my towel as I mull it over.
The image of Kelly’s shoes in my apartment burns into my brain.
They’re probably fucking now.
In our bed.
“Declan’s cool, isn’t he? He won’t get weird after,” I say.
Mel inclines her head toward me with a knowing smile. “Yeah, totally cool.”