Chapter 12
My hand hurt from holding my phone all night waiting for Jules to call me. Knowing Jules would be on the other line soon kept me grounded.
Where the fuck is Jules?
I contemplated calling my parents, but they were off galivanting around the world, spending my inheritance as my mom loved to say. Honestly, I wasn’t sure they would fly back to help me, and I didn’t want to know the answer. My heart was too tender to take anymore disappointment.
I stared at my ceiling for fuck knew how long. Bradford’s justification on why he needed to end our engagement pinged in my brain. My head hurt, my body hurt, my tattered soul was nonexistent.
After another bout of crying where I dry heaved into the toilet until my stomach ached, I made my way into the kitchen. The unfinished enchilada dinner was still plated on the island.
A scream wrenched out of me, sounding like a wounded animal. I grabbed the plates, throwing them in the garbage, listening to the ceramic shatter.
Join the club.
Everything went into the trash. The enchiladas, the glass container they were in, all the while I was screaming. When everything was gone from that dreaded moment, I stomped outside with the bulging trash bag, tossing it in the bin.
Without shoes, I stumbled over to Jules’ house across the street, hoping she’d just lost her charger again. My palms hit her door with desperation. I collapsed against it, my forehead plastered to the cold wood.
She didn’t answer. Jules was gone on her mysterious side quest without me, while my brain was cajoling my broken heart to continue to beat.
A whimper escaped me when I made my way back to my house. I stood in my living room, unsure what else to do, then I noticed my laptop on the kitchen table where I’d left it last night after I stopped working to cook he who shall not be mentioned’s dinner.
Not exciting?
When I turned on my laptop and typed in the website Jules showed me weeks ago, my hands were steady for the first time since Bradford walked out.
Thankfully, the website was user friendly because my brain was still convincing my heart to continue working.
Without thinking too hard about it, I made a profile indicating I was a unicorn, recently single from a long-term relationship, looking for a couple to have fun with, but with no emotional attachment.
The number of hits I had was staggering.
I refused to back down and decided to pick the first couple that didn’t look creepy.
Fifty couples down, I found them. They were new to the website, too, and hadn’t made any matches yet, at least on this site.
I liked that it was going to be both of our first times, or what appeared to be.
Kelly Ann and Robert.
They were both smiling in their profile picture.
Kelly Ann had dark blonde hair and a kind smile.
Robert was fit with dark, almost black hair that he kept short but didn’t hide the sprinkles of grey.
Compared to the other couples I’d seen while I scrolled through my numerous matches, they seemed like they were the unicorns.
Before I could chicken out, I messaged them, asking if they were available to meet that night. Bubbles appeared in the messaging screen, then disappeared before returning, and disappeared again.
I held my breath and watched the dancing dots. If they rejected me, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to come back from that blow.
Finally, a message appeared. I let my breath go in a rush; my lungs burned from the prolonged inhale.
We just so happen to have free time tonight. Would you like to meet at our house at 4:30?
Their message made me almost smile.
Did I want to meet them at their house?
I wasn’t a moron, I knew meeting at a strange couple’s house was how horror movies started, but in my gut, I trusted them.
I went for it. They sent me their address, and I confirmed the time. My stomach revolted again, but I had outsmarted it because there wasn’t anything in it to toss out.
Nerves had me jumpy. With a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I didn’t eat on my kitchen table, I attempted to call Jules again. When her cheery voicemail picked up, I silently screamed while I shook my phone, wishing it was Bradford’s neck.
With too much time and a missing best friend, I took a bath. Shaving everything, and lotioning my body until I was sufficiently moisturized and smelled like vanilla and strawberries.
After pulling on a flowery green summer dress with matching sandals, I was as ready as I was going to get.
With one more once over, I refused to acknowledge the wild, lost look in my green eyes, and that even though I used almost a whole tube of concealer, the dark circles under my eyes were making their presence known.
Without paying attention to the rock, which now resided in the bottom of my stomach, I punched Kelly Ann and Robert’s address into my phone. It was in an area I wasn’t familiar with, closer to the ocean, and further out of my tax bracket.
My car slowed down when I neared the gated community. It had a freaking huge gate and a security guard manning the small shack. If my heart beat any harder, it was going to crack my sternum.
“Name?” the scary man asked when I pulled up.
“Rachel, I’m here to see Kelly Ann and Robert?” It sounded like a question instead of an answer to his innocent question.
He scanned his tablet; my palms were sweaty against my steering wheel.
What the hell am I doing?
Before I could slam my car in reverse and go back to my affordable house, he nodded and the gates began to open.
Turn around, Rachel. Why did you think you could do this?
Everything was wrong. My heart was skittering out of control, and sweat was pouring out of pores I didn’t even think had sweat glands.
A horn blared behind me when I attempted to turn around. My GPS rudely told me to continue straight for three miles before turning right. I crept the three miles, changing my mind, and changing it back numerous times.