53. Dante
CHAPTER 53
Dante
I slipped through the next few weeks in a daze. By day, I stumbled through my time at the office. By night, I worked at the bar. There was nothing in between. The article in the paper hadn’t been that bad. But then a website published several of the steamy scenes—the thirteenth floor, the pool table—unedited and in full detail.
For the first couple of weeks, I’d been approached by a variety of girls. Faith was good at what she did, and I had to admit, she made me sound damn good on paper. In the beginning, I let them down easily. A smile, a shrug of the shoulders. As their advances became more brazen, my attitude sharpened.
I’d lost track of how many times I’d been propositioned as I walked across campus. I even caught a girl stuffing her underwear into my mailbox. Those chicks wanted me to do to them everything Faith wrote about in her books. The guys wanted my advice. I was so sick of this shit. I’d been spending as much time as I could down at Meemaw’s. By the end of the month, I’d have everything sorted and ready for the estate sale.
There was just one problem. I missed Faith. She’d called, left messages, sent texts, she even made me a batch of Meemaw’s lemon crinkle cookies. I’d eaten every last one and damn if they didn’t taste just like the old woman’s. Meemaw would have been proud—turns out Faith could bake. I’d done everything I could possibly think of to get her out of my head. I drank. Then I stopped drinking and started running. I was in the best shape of my life thanks to daily workouts at the gym.
I couldn’t stand it anymore and couldn’t wait to put as much distance between us as possible. In a few weeks, I’d be packing everything I owned into my car and driving halfway across the country to my new job in Baltimore. I just needed to survive a bit longer, and I’d be out of there. Somehow, the thought of moving farther away from her made me feel worse, not better.
I yanked an earbud from my ear. I’d hoped no one would bother me if it looked like I was listening to music, but Murph wasn’t necessarily known for paying attention to even the most obvious social cues.
“Hey, Murph, what’s up?”
“Do you need a spot, bro?” Murph asked.
“Sure.” I laid back on the bench and waited for Murph to get into position.
“Saw you got a bad break, man.”
“Yeah. Didn’t see that one coming.” I took in a big breath and extended my arms, raising the bar over my chest.
“I tried to warn you about that bitch.”
I cut my eyes to Murph’s face and grunted as I lowered the weight and pushed the bar up, completing one rep. “Watch it.”
Murph smiled a lopsided grin. “Still got it bad for her, huh? Dude, you’re pussy-whipped.”
I ignored the comment and focused on the weight. My arms and chest burned from the effort. I’d been numbed by Faith’s betrayal. It felt good to feel something, even if it was pain. I had started to think I might never be capable of feeling anything again.
“What are you going to do?” Murph asked.
“Who says I have to do anything?” I squinted up at him.
“No offense, bro, but I read that shit. It was hot. If I was getting off like that with some chick, I’d be banging it until she shut me down.”
I struggled to get the weight back up onto the stand. If I kept pushing myself like this, I wouldn’t even be able to lift a beer mug tonight. Murph grabbed on and helped guide the bar to a resting position.
“Well, that’s probably just the beginning of the difference between you and me.” I sat up slowly and wiped a towel across my brow.
“Dude. Did she tell you I found that shit on her computer? She offered to fuck me to keep it quiet. Like I’d want to put my dick in your cum dumpster. What a cu?—”
Instinct took over. Before I realized what I was doing, I jumped off the bench and wrapped the towel around Murph’s neck, pulling it tight with both hands. “It was you! Take that back, you piece of shit.”
Murph gagged and sputtered, sending a dribble of spit down his chin as his hands came up and scrambled to pry the towel away. The usual clank of barbells and raucous background voices came to an abrupt halt. As I released my grip, I looked around the weight room. All eyes were on me. Just like they’d been all week. Murph’s face started to regain a natural color, and I clapped him on the back.
“Get the fuck away from me.” Murph slapped at my hand.
With every eye in the place boring into my back, I grabbed my water bottle and keys and made my way to the door. Shit. I couldn’t even get away from her at the gym. I saw her everywhere I looked.
I’d done exactly what I promised myself I’d never do again—put my trust in someone. Faith had played me like a fucking fiddle. She’d blindsided me, pulled the rug out from under me, taken my heart to the cleaners. I’d never be able to live it down, thanks to the diligence of the paper and the worldwide web. My mistake would go down in everlasting history.
I needed to get my mind off her once and for all. I needed to get wasted. Maybe even laid. And I knew just the place to go to make both of those things happen.
I wrapped my fingers around the stem of the last clean wineglass and hung it upside down from the rack over the bar. I’d been scheduled for the early shift on a Saturday afternoon for a change. I caught a glimpse of pink from the corner of my eye and looked up to see Brittany coming through the door. As she made her way through the tables of men watching the Blackhawks take on the Red Wings, all their eyes followed her from the doorway to the bar.
“Hey, Brittany. How’s it going?”
“So this is where you hide out when you’re not meeting with us at the library?” She lifted one butt cheek onto the edge of a stool.
I set a paper coaster down in front of her. “What can I get you?”
“Well,” she drew out her l’s, making the word last ten times longer than it should have. “Semester’s almost over. I was kind of wondering if you might be interested in dinner sometime. You know, like a last hurrah.”
She was decked out in all pink, like some frosted cotton candy concoction. Tight raspberry pink jacket over a snug bubble gum pink tank top. Even the purse she plopped down on the bar was pink. Pink overload.
I fought the urge to shield my eyes. “Dinner, huh?”
“Yeah, the meal after lunch. Most people eat it in the evening, say, around seven?”
I smiled. “I’m not opposed to dinner, but I am opposed to going out with a student I’ve mentored.”
“Oh, I thought maybe you’d changed your position on that, after all the stuff in the paper.” A gleam caught her eye, and she leaned over the bar, giving me a glimpse of her lacy, pastel pink bra. “We don’t exactly have to go out, Dante. In fact, we don’t even have to have dinner.”
She was a good-looking girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a cross between a busty Julianne Hough and a platinum Katy Perry.
“Thanks, but no thanks. Nothing personal.” I grabbed a rag and wiped down the counter, forcing Brittany to remove her hands from the bar and sit back down.
“I get it. Just between us,”—she cupped her hand around her mouth as if divulging a huge secret—“what she did to you was wrong. Leading you on like that. See, with me, what you see is what you get.”
I swabbed the rag further down the bar, away from Princess Pinky Pie. “I’m flattered, but I have to pass.” What the hell had gotten into me? She was offering me exactly what I’d always been after... sex with no strings attached. Only now that didn’t quite seem like enough anymore.
“Fine. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” She stepped down off the stool and sashayed her tight, Pepto-Bismol-covered ass right out the front door.
I let out a groan and took out my frustration on a particularly stubborn spot on the bar as a vision of Faith lying on my bed in her red lacy bra cavorted through my mind. So much for getting laid. At least I could still get rip-roaring wasted. I snagged a bottle of Jack from behind the bar and grabbed a plastic cup.
“I’m taking five, Wyatt.” I stomped down the hall to the office and slumped into a chair.
Wyatt pushed the door open and walked around the desk while I poured an inch of the dark amber liquid into the cup.
“You want to tell me what’s going on here?” Wyatt asked.
“Care to join me for a shot of this fine beverage?”
Wyatt sat down and propped his elbows on the desk. “When are you going to get your head out of your ass?”
“I guess that’s a no. Bottom’s up.” I chugged the Jack and poured another.
“Still haven’t talked to her?”
“Who, Faith? We’re toast. As in stick-a-fucking-fork-in-it, over with a capital ‘O.’”
“I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.”
“Oh yeah? Lindsey ever publish a detailed account of every time you buried yourself balls-deep inside her?”
Wyatt reached for the bottle and the cup. “Give me some of that.”
“See? Just the thought is driving you to drink.”
“She did apologize.”
I slammed another shot. “She left me a few messages. Hardly an earth-shattering apology.” I reached for the bottle again, but Wyatt grabbed it first.
“Why don’t you slow down on the shots? Look, I know what happened to you back in high school. I was there, remember? But Faith didn’t cheat on you. She made a mistake.”
“Oh yeah? Well, some mistakes are too big to forgive.” I jerked the bottle from Wyatt’s hand and poured another inch into the cup.
“You think you’re the only one who’s ever been blindsided? Hell, Lindsey and I had some issues early on,” Wyatt said.
“Coulda fooled me. The two of you... you’re like syrup and pancakes... sticky, sweet, and completely smothering.”
Wyatt slapped his hand down on the desk, and I jumped in my seat. “I screwed up. Lied to her about something so stupid. I almost lost her.” He moved around to lean up against the desk, leveling his gaze at me. “If she hadn’t forgiven me... I don’t know where I would have ended up.”
Leave it to Wyatt. He hadn’t been such a softie back in Hinkley. But there was a tiny bit of truth to his words. Faith hadn’t cheated. She’d just failed to tell the complete truth. Had I been too quick to bail on her?
“I don’t know, Wyatt. I’m pretty sure I’m not the forgive-and-forget type.”
“Then find a way. I know you. This woman really got to you. I’m not saying she’s the one, but there’s a strong possibility. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life wallowing in shit when you could have done something about it.” He grabbed the bottle and headed back out to the bar.
I steepled my fingers and pressed them to my forehead. I was driving myself crazy. I’d have to talk to her. I promised myself the next time she called, I wouldn’t automatically send it to voicemail.
Maybe she’d actually say something worth hearing.