“For the most part. I’ve answered to worse.”
“Rough night, I take it?”
“Nothing that a bottle of whiskey and a rooftop can’t fix.” He feigned lightness but knew the truth wasn’t that far off. He violated and betrayed the only person he ever loved. It was a stretch, wondering how he might eventually come to live with himself.
“I figured.” She wrinkled her nose and flicked the ash. “I could hear the whole thing.”
“Oh.” Until then, he hadn’t even thought of how others outside the situation might view his actions. Suddenly that rooftop didn’t seem like such a joke.
“Don’t worry. I heard it, but I didn’t understand it. Nobody understands a relationship except for the people who are in it, and sometimes not even them.”
That was for sure. Jay didn’t even understand himself anymore. He let out a gusty sigh. “I’m not in a relationship,” he admitted, his voice cracking. “Not with Kimber. I totally fucked up any chance of that.”
“Oh, I know all about doing things like that. Why do you think I’m out here, pretending I’m a smoker?” She took a brief, inexperienced drag then eyed the cigarette. “My mom smokes these-Misty 100s. I used to wave them in the air and pretend they were magic wands that could make everything all right. But now I know the truth-all a cigarette does is make my mouth taste like my mood.” She glanced at Jay. “See, Brad and I got in a fight, and he left for who knows where.”
“That sucks.” Jay struggled to care more, but his own problems loomed too massive to see around.
“Yeah. Tomorrow was supposed to be our anniversary, and I don’t even know if we’re together.” Taryn looked at him. “Check us out, a couple of screw-ups.”
“Pretty much.” Just what he wanted to dwell on.
“Look, I know we don’t know each other well at all, but right now I can’t think of anyone more miserable than me aside from you, and they say misery loves company. Since my friends are somehow nowhere to be found and I really don’t want to be alone tomorrow night, what do you think of feeling like hell together?”
“Sure.” He shrugged, just eager to get away from her and return to his seedy apartment in a neighborhood so shady it made Skid Row look like Beverly Hills. For the first time, he felt like his address suited him-and his character-perfectly.
“Great.” Taryn sounded anything but as she crushed the cigarette out on the step and tossed the butt in the bushes. “I’ll find you.”
She retreated indoors, leaving Jay alone with his morose thoughts. He realized then that not even five minutes after pouring his heart out to Kimber, he accepted a date with a woman who may or may not still be in a serious relationship. He unlocked and climbed into the Monte Carlo, where he rested his head against the steering wheel and tried to remember when he’d become such a terrible person.
Chapter Seven
“Oh my God!” Ferney’s eyes went so wide Kimber could see the whites all around the cool gray irises. “Your mystery lover was Jay? The whole time?”
“Apparently.” Kimber’s voice broke on the word. She hated to admit it, hated the pain and nausea it caused to do so, hated thinking about the truth, remembering how libertine and wanton she’d been. She’d put herself in a vulnerable position and it made her sick to think the person she’d trusted most took advantage of that.
“I’m aghast. Aghast.” Ferney sloshed the rest of the bottle of pinot noir into two glasses, pouring most of it on the breakfast nook’s table, and pushed one toward Kimber. “I can’t believe sweet, worshipful Jay would do something so manipulative and conniving. The guy’s about as devious as a Care Bear. Since when did he start being such a guy and thinking with his dick?”
“Who knows.” Kimber picked up the glass, her fingers shaking, and took a greedy gulp.
“Talk about an opportunist.”
“Mmm.” The wine was tasteless on Kimber’s tongue.
“However…” Ferney paused, drumming her manicured nails. “It sounds pretty hot, too.”
Kimber nearly choked on the wine. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me. Weren’t you raving about the whole thing a week or so ago?”
“I said all that about someone who I thought wasn’t a fucking liar.” Kimber’s face flamed as the trembling moved from her fingers to the rest of her body, and she tore a hand through her bedraggled, unwashed blonde hair. “It makes me physically ill, thinking about the things I did with Jay. I put myself on the line, assuming that I could. I thought I was with someone I could trust, not someone who would take advantage of me like this. It was degrading.”
“I’m sure Jay didn’t see it that way. Degrading you was likely the last thing on his mind, considering you were fulfilling his dreams. So.” Ferney leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “You said the sex was amazing?”
“Ferney!”
“You’re right, how dumb of me to ask. Of course it was amazing. You kept going back for more, after all.”
Kimber swallowed back a rush of nausea, her sister’s voice the equivalent of an air horn being blasted in her ear. “Please. Focus.”
“I am. I’m very focused. I’m focused on what you can’t focus on.”
Tears pricked Kimber’s eyes and she blinked them away. “All I can focus on is that I trusted Jay, and he betrayed me.”
“You also trusted who you thought was a total stranger with your heart and body. That stranger just so happened to be someone who’s worshipped you for years and would never intentionally hurt you. Considering all the different people it could’ve been, this may have actually been the best of all possible scenarios.”
“Are you seriously kidding me? This is the worst thing that could’ve happened.”
Ferney shrugged, her mouth twisting in sympathy. “Maybe so, maybe not.” She wrapped an arm around her sister’s neck, less of a hug and more like a lazy stranglehold. “I’m not saying that Jay didn’t do a disgusting, awful, unforgivable thing, but you know you guys were good together. And now you’ve had the best sex of your life with someone you really like. So disgusting, awful, unforgivable thing aside, how does that make you feel?”
“I don’t know.” Kimber’s gaze dropped to the table as she scratched at a dried patch of sauce clinging to the surface. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“Then think about it.”
Kimber froze and gaped at her sister. “Are you suggesting I forgive him?”
“No, just suggesting you think about it, that’s all. Hole yourself up tonight and do some serious soul-searching about the whole thing.”
“I can’t.” Kimber crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m meeting up with Dane.”
“Dane?” Ferney recoiled in horror. “Gross! Why?”
“Why not?” Her sister’s vehement opposition to the idea only inspired Kimber’s innate urge to defend it.
“Because you’re all wrong for each other, and by now you can surely see that, especially with Jay in the picture.”
“Jay is not in the picture.”
Ferney snorted. “I always knew you were delusional, but not this bad.”
Before Kimber could reply, her phone chirped in her bag, and she fished it out and checked the screen. “It’s Dane.”
“Ugh.” Ferney sat back in her seat and polished off her wine with a theatrical head toss. “The madness begins. Again.”
Kimber flipped her sister the bird as she retreated into the bedroom that used to be hers, where she would fall asleep waiting in vain for Dane to call her. Now that he finally had, she couldn’t help but see it as an annoyance. “Hello?”