Jett Read online

  The house is dark and quiet when I enter, and Mittens doesn’t greet me at the door as expected because the office door is closed. She must have gotten herself stuck in there unless Troy placed her purposely inside.

  I sit my bags down on the counter, slide off my khaki trench coat and work shoes, and open my bedroom door to look for Troy and ask him why he’s put my cat on a timeout. Does he do this all the time when he’s home alone with her? If so, the two of us are going to have a long talk.

  “Troy, why did you–”

  Then, like a skidding car that’s hit a brick wall, I stop dead in my tracks.

  My face painfully mushed up against the glass.

  Eyes wide open.

  Four

  ADRIENNE

  My loving fiancé, my Mr. Perfect, is buck naked on his knees, serving some woman doggy-styled on my brand new Egyptian cotton sheets. Her facial expression is full of pleasure. His is full of determination. Mine is the look of a woman about to puke all over her hardwood floors.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” I shriek in utter disbelief.

  Troy’s face turns seven shades of red as I watch him internally search for a lie to talk himself out of this.

  He mouths the word fuck to himself several times before he stutters, “Let, let, let, lemme explain.”

  I take a deep breath from my diaphragm and exhale with a long controlled breath.

  “You both need to get out of my house right now,” I say with deadly calm, before I kill one of them or worse… cry.

  I walk over to the long sheer curtains that frame my bedroom window and slide my hand behind one panel. Troy keeps a baseball bat there for my security when he’s not here. It’s so ironic how this situation could be the first time I may ever have to use it. I hold the bat in my hand and stand at the foot of the bed in what I hope looks like a threatening stance.

  “Move,” I say, tapping the base of the bat on the floor as I stare directly at the naked woman on my bed. “Faster.”

  The woman quickly scurries off the bed, grabs her clothes, and heads for the door.

  “I’m sorry,” she says apologetically. “He said this was his place.”

  I don’t respond to her lame excuses. There are red flags all over this house that would show a woman lives here. She just wasn’t interested in acknowledging them. But that’s neither here nor there at this point; the real problem is the man I’ve given two good years of my twenties to.

  A complete waste of time.

  “You’re not moving fast enough,” I say to Troy as I raise the bat like I’m on the batter’s mound.

  “So that’s it?” He challenges.

  “Is what it?”

  “I make one mistake and we’re over?”

  “You made one hell of mistake, so yeah, we’re over. You’ve got thirty more seconds or I’m going to start swinging.”

  He holds his hands up in surrender.

  “Fine, Adrienne, I’m leaving. Don’t bash my head in, all right? You’re going to regret maiming me when you’ve finally forgiven me for this colossal blunder.”

  “You’ve got it twisted. I will never forgive you.”

  I can feel the tears swelling. I need him out of here like yesterday. I cry for no man.

  “You just need some time,” he has the audacity to say, as if we’ve just had some sort of lover’s spat.

  “Leave.”

  When Troy finally pulls his pants on and leaves my house, I am overwhelmed with feelings of anger, sadness, embarrassment and remorse. I drop like a sack of flour in the middle of my bedroom floor and cry until a phone call zaps me out of my one-woman pity party.

  “Adrienne?”

  “Hey, Dena.”

  “Are you ok? You sound off.”

  I try to quietly sniffle away from the phone.

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Something is up.”

  “Well, you will not believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “I just caught Troy in bed with another woman.”

  There’s a moment of silence between us. She’s probably just as stunned as I am. We both believed that I had finally found a good one.

  “Well, damn, that is definitely not nothing.”

  “I know,” I whisper painfully.

  “Aww, Adrienne, I’m so sorry. I know you loved him.”

  It feels so weird to hear my best friend talk about my fiancee in the past tense already. An hour ago, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. Now, it’s almost as if Troy is dead. Actually, I guess a piece of my life did just die.

  “I do… I mean I did love him.”

  “Do you think that maybe you could forgive him in time? Human beings make mistakes. I suppose Troy is human like the rest of us.”

  “Absolutely not,” I affirm. “They were in my house and my bed. I could never respect myself if I got back together with him.”

  I tear up again, and a frog in my throat forms.

  “Then it’s done.”

  “Yeah, it’s done.” I sniffle.

  “The best thing for you to do to get over a man is to find another one to lie under or on top of,” she suggests. “Don’t wallow by yourself at home, especially tonight.”

  “Dena, it just happened.”

  “Which is exactly why you need to get out of that house. Hell, it probably still smells like sex in there and you might do something crazy like burn your own damn house down.”

  I glance over at the crumpled bed sheets and almost vomit.

  She’s right.

  There’s no way I’m ever going to even be able to sleep in here tonight.

  “I think I’m going to burn these sheets.”

  “And maybe you should in a very responsible and contained way, but not tonight. Tonight you should go have a drink or ten. Get shit faced. You know I’d join you but I’ve got that meeting tonight and I’ve already rescheduled it once, but I mean I can if you really need me.”

  I consider her suggestion while staring at a framed photograph of Troy and I on my dresser. It doesn’t take long for me to make my decision.

  “Go to your meeting. I’ll go to the Wild Boar.”

  “The old neighborhood spot? I was thinking maybe you could go to the rooftop bar of that new hotel in Midtown. That way if you need to get a room to sleep it off you’re just a few steps away.”

  “I’m not looking to spend half my paycheck on two overpriced drinks. I just want to get good and drunk and forget this night ever happened.”

  “Okay, call me when you leave there so that I know you arrived home safely.”

  “It’s literally around the corner, Dena. I’m walking.”

  “Exactly! Some pervert could follow you home and attack you in the stairwell.”

  “I need you to stop watching Criminal Minds all the time and get to your meeting. I’ll be fine. This neighborhood is safe, and I’ve been going to that bar ever since I was twenty-one years old. It’s like that old television show Cheers. Everyone knows me there.”

  Dena chuckles lightly through the phone. “I doubt that, babe. You haven’t been to that bar in a very long time, but okay, maybe you just send me a quick text when you get back home. That will be acceptable.”

  “If I’m not drunk enough to forget to do it, then agreed.”

  “Oh my God, who are you and where is my friend who always does the responsible thing?” Dena mocks.

  “And look where that got me.”

  I’m practically in a daze as I peel off my work clothes and change into a pair of jeans and the softest t-shirt I own. I take down my neat topknot that my hair was in all day and let it fall casually around my face. It actually looks kind of nice this way and makes my face look softer and less severe.

  All I take with me is a credit card, my ID, and my cell phone because getting to the Wild Boar Tavern is only a ten-minute walk from my apartment.

  The plan is simple for tonight.

  I’m going to get drunk and try to forget the last two years of my life. Then I’ll stagger back home and sleep in for the first time in probably eight months. I’ve been working nonstop to secure my position at the hospital and to build a bigger life with Troy, but right now all of that seems meaningless.

  Tonight, I feel like a complete failure at everything in my life and I’m not even sure how I blundered the test.

  Oh, wait a minute, I know how. I trusted Troy.

  But the biggest fail?

  Was that I dared to trust myself.

  Five

  ADRIENNE

  The Wild Boar belongs in a 1970s mob movie. It’s a throwback bar nestled in downtown Manhattan that desperately needs an interior decorator and some better lighting. They covered the walls in what has to be at least fifty-year-old dark wood paneling and 8x10 pictures of who I think are celebrities that may have passed through the bar in its heyday. Yet with all that said, it’s one of the more popular bars in the area. It’s tight and loud and not the type of place that you would usually find a medical professional like myself, but this place holds a lot of memories and call me old-fashioned but I’m a sucker for nostalgia.

  “Welcome to the Wild Boar. Would you like to sit at the bar?”

  A server I’ve never met before greets me at the door. I think about how I told Dena that this is my bar, but she was right, I haven’t been here in ages. No one looks familiar except one bartender. The server asks if I want to sit at the bar because that’s what you do with people who come to a bar and grill alone, but I don’t care about how pathetic I may look.

  Hell, let’s be honest here, I am pathetic.

  “No, I’ll take the table in the corner, please.”

  If I’m going to get shit-faced, I don’t need an audience
while I do it.

  It’s so crowded tonight that I need to suck in my stomach as we both maneuver ourselves through the packed crowd standing at the bar and tall-top tables. The server seats me at a small round table near the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner. A Wild Boar treasure.

  “This table good?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Do you know what you want to order?” she asks. “Because it might take me a minute to get back over here if you wait.”

  “Sure, I’ll take a basket of chicken tenders with fries and the largest margarita you make with top shelf tequila please.”

  “Any particular brand?”

  “No, just nothing that will give me a headache in the morning.”

  The server smiles. “No problem. I’ll go put in your order and bring you your drink.”

  I stand up, walk over to the jukebox and smile to myself. They haven’t changed the music selection on this thing in years, if ever. Most people are watching the flat screen televisions hung high in strategic corners of the bar, but I want to listen to music, so I press the button for “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

  I sway my hips to the beginning of the song but become self-conscious as the song apparently increases in volume with each verse. A few people turn around to stare, probably wondering who the nerd is who’s chosen this corny old song, so I smile awkwardly but am relieved when they all seem to turn back to their respective conversations.

  Everyone except for one very tall human being.

  Extraordinarily tall.

  He’s towering above everyone in the room at one of the high-top tables in a baseball cap pulled down low, jeans that fit his ass like a glove, and a nondescript midnight blue hoodie. Standing perched over a beer and a shot of some sort of clear liquor, I can’t see much of his face under the brim of his hat, but he’s staring right at me with a huge grin on his face.

  I’m momentarily distracted by my gawker because of a flash of light from my cell phone. A text has just come in.

  Troy: You ready to talk now?

  Unbelievable.

  Me: Never

  Troy: Please, Adrienne.

  I suck my teeth, annoyed that he has the audacity to text me after what he’s done. I guess my asshole fiancé’s actions are finally sinking in his pea-sized brain. Now that the dust has settled, I bet he’s realized exactly what he just destroyed between the two of us. I bet if I really wanted to, I could get him to do just about anything to get back into my good graces.

  * * *

  I’ve had the time of my life

  No, I never felt this way before

  Yes, I swear it’s the truth

  And I owe it all to you

  * * *

  This part of the song reminds me of Patrick Swayze holding Baby ever so possessively in their famous dance scene, and suddenly I have an aha moment. I love that movie because not only does Patrick Swayze’s character desire Baby, but he respects her, and so the lesson I learned tonight is that there’s nothing sexier than respect. Something Troy is incapable of giving.

  * * *

  I can’t help but reread the asshole’s text message, imagining a variety of sarcastic responses I should send back. Maybe I should send him another one-liner or something intelligent but mean as hell, if that combination is even possible. I want him to be in agony. I want him in pain. I want him to feel exactly how I feel.

  * * *

  I type a few lame words into the chat box, pause, then tap the delete button. I type again, but end up doing the same thing. I can’t seem to think straight this sober. None of my texts are mean enough without sounding completely like a heartbroken sixteen-year-old girl.

  * * *

  I need alcohol.

  * * *

  Where’s the server with my drink?

  * * *

  “Is this seat taken?”

  My head pops up at the resonant voice directing a question my way. It’s the same long-legged man who was staring at me a moment ago, but now he’s standing by my table and already headed for the chair in the corner before I can even respond.

  I catch a glimpse of his entire face under the brim of his hat and whoa. While Troy is attractive when he shaves and tries really hard, this man is ruggedly handsome in a very easy and understated way. Even under his sweats, I can see that his chest is broad and probably tapers down to a firm set of abs. His jaw is firm and chiseled and covered in a 5 o’clock shadow of facial hair, and his body language exudes swagger and confidence. Without even trying he has the rapt attention of half the women in the bar and I guarantee you he knows it. He probably revels in it.

  “Sorry,” I say to stop him, “but yes, this seat’s taken.”

  I’ve just had my heart ripped out and thrown in the gutter. I am through with men for the foreseeable future, especially ones that look like this. I’ve wasted two years with Troy and two years before him with another liar. This freakishly sexy man needs to go back to wherever he came from. He’s wasting his time over here. I’m not in the mood for casual chit-chat. Maybe coming here was a bad idea.

  “Is it really?”

  The side of his perfectly shaped mouth curls up in a cocky smirk.

  “Um, yeah, really.”

  “Yeah, but there are no seats at the bar and I gave up my chair for a woman who needed it.”

  I shrug my shoulders in an “oh well” manner.

  “That was very polite of you,” I say dismissively. “But you can’t sit here.”

  I feel a few sets of eyes on the two of us but don’t make too much of it. I know it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the stranger. His physical dominance fills the room. The bass in his voice reverberates off the walls. Ovaries all over the bar are probably on high alert.

  “I’m not sure I can say the same for you.”

  “What?” I ask in an irritated voice.

  “You’re not being very polite.”

  My eyes widen at how he delivers his straightforward words in the most laid back manner.

  “What?” I repeat, because it’s the only stupid thing I can think of to say.

  “I watched you come in here tonight. You’ve been here for at least ten or fifteen minutes. You ordered one drink and danced a little to a song. You never turned your head. You never looked at the door to see if anyone was coming. You’re alone. There’s no one sitting here, not even your purse, and you won’t let me sit down?”

  “Did you ever consider that I’m waiting for someone?”

  “Then they’re really inconsiderate for leaving a woman who looks like you sitting alone in a bar like this for so long.”

  My face immediately softens. I’m a sucker for a flattering remark, especially on the shittiest day of my life. Plus, I notice his arm is in a sling and consider that it’s probably hard to drink in a crowded bar with only one good hand. He’s right, I’m being uncharacteristically rude. Just because my soul’s been crushed by one jerk tonight doesn’t mean I have to hate on the entire gender.

  “I apologize,” I say magnanimously. “Take the chair.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  I can’t help but gawk at my pompous new table mate as he awkwardly maneuvers himself in the wooden chair tucked in the corner. It’s a tight fit. This man is not only tall, but wide. Underneath that generous hoodie is definitely a lot of muscle. It’s almost as if he’s trying to dwarf himself by wearing it, but an impossible feat. I imagine that a man his size with those looks is hard to miss wherever he goes.

  “Oh, so you’re sitting here… with me?” I ask.

  I thought he would just take the chair and sit somewhere else after our uncomfortable exchange.

  “Did you order already?” he asks, totally ignoring my previous question.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you get? I’ll order another round.”

  “No thanks, I’m a one drink at a time kind of girl.”

  He stares down at his beer and his two shot glasses of liquor, then back at me.