Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (37 page)

He sighs. “I don’t think it’s going to
work out,” he says. “We haven’t really talked since we had our argument, not
about anything important or personal anyway. Then, after I got that text from
her boss-”

“Yeah, you told me that,” I tell him.
“What you didn’t tell me was what it said.”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever’s going on
with the two of them is still going on and probably has been for a long time. I
was really hoping we could work it out, but-”

“Why?” I interrupt.

“Why what?”

“Why were you hoping you could work it
out? I mean, I can understand it if it was only the one time, but if it’s
something that’s ongoing, even after she told you that she was done with all
that — I don’t know, I just don’t see why you’re still hanging onto a
relationship like that.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess it’s
just that we’ve been together for a few years. She was there when I graduated
med school. I guess I just thought that meant something.”

“Yeah,” I scoff. “It meant that she had a
lot of time to spread her legs. Let me see the text from her boss.”

“Why?”

“I just want to see it,” I tell him.

I have an idea.

“I don’t know what it’ll prove, but all right,”
he says and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

He finds the message and hands it to me.

“‘I want to have sex tonight,’” I read
aloud. “He sounds like quite the charmer.”

“What are you doing?” he asks as I start
typing a new message.

“Is she home?” I ask.

“What?”

“If you know where she is, I think we just
might be able to find you some vindication,” I answer.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“She’s home,” he says. “At least, she was
when I left.”

“All right,” I answer. “I’ll start off
easy then.” Then I type the words, “Hey. How are you?”

“Now we wait,” I tell him.

“What are we waiting for?” he asks.

“An indication that she’s not with him and
he thinks this is a number that she uses,” I answer.

The phone vibrates and I pull up the
message.

I read aloud, “Hey sexy. Is your boyfriend
checking your phone?”

“Yeah, we’re done, me and her,” Jace says.

“Not quite,” I tell him and type, “Yeah,
he’s been a total bitch about the whole thing.
Wanna
get together later?”

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I think it’s time the two of them had a
little vacation together,” I tell him.

“You’re setting them up on a date?” he
asks. “Isn’t that something they’ve been doing pretty well on their own?”

“Maybe so,” I answer, “but this time’s
going to be a little bit different.”

The phone vibrates, and I pick it up.

“When and where?” I read and then look at
Jace, saying, “This is about to get fun.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he
answers.

As I’m typing, I read Jace what’s going
into the message, “Let’s blow off for the next couple of days and just get away
together. I hear Maine’s gorgeous this time of year. I’ll make it worth your
while.”

“You’re sending them to Maine?”

“Correction,” I say and smile, “I’m
sending
him
to Maine.”

We wait a minute and another text comes
in.

“With the late notice, I don’t know if I
can get away from the wife that long,” I read.

“Why am I not surprised that he’s
married?” Jace asks.

“Because he’s an asshole,” I answer. I
type, “Just tell her something came up and you’ve got to take a last minute
business trip. Trust me: you’re going to be smiling before the night is out.”

“Do you really think that’s going to
work?” Jace asks. “I can see standing him up here in town, but I seriously
doubt he’s going to go for a days-long vacation planned last minute through
text messages.”

“I think you’re underestimating the degree
to which men like to stick their dicks in warm, wet places,” I answer.
“Besides, I’m offering to raise the stakes, but I’m not being specific as to
how. That drives men crazy.”

“Does it now?” Jace chuckles.

It’s good to see he’s starting to find the
humor in all of this.

The phone vibrates again and I read, “I’ll
see what I can do, but booking a flight for both of us isn’t going to be
cheap.”

“The dude makes well into six figures,”
Jace says. “Why’s he so worried about the money?”

“He’s not,” I answer. “He wants me to tell
him exactly what I have planned. He’s trying to get me to convince him.” I
type, “It may not be cheap, but with what I’m going to let you do to me, I’d
say it’s worth every penny. I have plans that you wouldn’t believe.”

Jace is actually laughing now, though I
still see lingering pain on his face.

“We’re just giving them both what they
deserve,” I tell him. “I know the situation sucks, but revenge is oh, so
wonderful.”

Another minute passes and the phone
vibrates again.

“I’m looking at flights,” I read. “What
time do you want to leave tonight? There’s a 7:35 and a 9:20 to Bangor.”

“Watch this,” I tell Jace and he looks
over my shoulder as I type, “You take the 7:35. I’ll take the 9:20. I don’t
want to take a chance that my boyfriend or your wife follows us and spots us
together.”

“He’s going to catch on,” Jace says. “Do
you really think he’s going to buy the need for two separate flights?”

“It adds to the intrigue,” I tell him.
“It’s part of the foreplay. He’ll go for it.”

The phone vibrates.

I read, “Tickets purchased. I’ll see you
in a few hours.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Jace says.

“I told you, men are easy.”

“That or the guy’s a fucking idiot.”

“I wouldn’t rule that out entirely,” I
answer. “Now, this is going to be the cherry on top.” I write, “Send me a text
on my other phone in a few minutes saying you need me to hop a plane to make a
late business meeting. Write that you need me to go to L.A.”

“L.A.?” Jace asks.

“Yeah,” I answer. “Then, even if she
figures it all out on the plane, you’ll still have plenty of time to get her
shit packed and ready to move by the time she gets back.”

A smile lifts the corners of
Jace’s
mouth, but it fades just as quickly, “Do you really
think Melissa’s going to fall for it?” he asks. “You rightly said that men are
easy, but-”

“I would imagine this would be a big step
for her career, being sent to the City of Angels for a late business meeting,
wouldn’t it?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess so.”

“Wow, you two really
haven’t
talked that much since your argument,” I respond.

The phone vibrates again.

“How long should I wait?” I read and
immediately write back, “Ten minutes. Tell me that I’ll need to buy my own
ticket or my boyfriend won’t believe me.”

I send that message, but I’m not quite
done yet.

I type, “Just play along if I ask you any
questions. Make up a schedule for meetings that sounds believable. He’s really
been watching me.” I send that and start another, “If I tell you that I can’t
or start complaining about the late notice, I’m just convincing my boyfriend
it’s real. Tell me not to text you until I get there.” And finally, just to
prove to Jace that the relationship between Melissa and her boss isn’t over, I
write one more, “Five minutes after I accept, send a pic of your cock. Tell me
how much you want to fuck me when I get there. Send it to my other phone. It
has a better screen.”

I press send.

“You know something?” Jace asks.

“What’s that?”

“You are fucking evil,” he laughs.

“Yeah, you’ll probably want to stay on my
good side,” I tell him. “Pro tip: I’m a sucker for shoulder massages.”

“I feel kind of bad,” Jace says.

“Why? All you’re doing is screwing the
people that have been screwing you by screwing each other.”

Jace looks past me for a moment, but
finally says, “I’m not quite sure I caught that.”

I laugh and ask, “Did I go too fast for
you?”

“Well, you did say screwing a lot, I got
that part,” he says.

“Seriously, I’ve done some killer work
here. I think I’ve earned a shoulder massage.”

I don’t know if he was going to do it or
not, but the phone vibrates. This time, though, it’s not Ty; it’s Melissa.

“I think you’ll want to read this one,” I
tell Jace and hand him the phone.

He reads it aloud, “Hey, I’ve got to catch
a flight to L.A. for work. I won’t see you when you get home.” He turns off his
phone and puts it in his pocket.

“Now wait another five minutes — actually,
just to make sure she’s gotten the picture, let’s make it ten — and then give
her a call asking about her trip. Ask her to stay, and if she doesn’t, you’ll
know where her priorities really lie,” I tell him.

“You’re sure she won’t think this is
really about work?” he asks.

“She might at first,” I tell him, “but
once she gets the dick in her inbox — see what I did there? —
it’s
going to be pretty damn clear just what she’s
really
being told.”

“You know,” he says, rubbing his chin, “I
really should feel bad about this. After all the time we’ve spent together,
after all we’ve been through, and I’m setting her up. You know what’s funny,
though?”

“What?”

“I actually feel pretty great about it,”
he says. “For the first time in a long time, I’m starting to not only know, but
to actually feel that I don’t need to be with someone who’s going to treat me
that way.”

“No you don’t,” I tell him. “Now, about
that shoulder massage…”

“Don’t I have to call Melissa in a
minute?”

I groan. “Yeah,” I tell him. “You do.”

“Rain check then,” he says.

We’re both watching the clock. When ten
minutes have passed, Jace calls Melissa from his phone and asks her to stay.

He’s not a bad actor.

The call ends abruptly and Jace simply
puts his phone back in his pocket, saying, “Yeah. It’s over.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that her boss is really riding
her and that she’s got to make the trip or else she’s going to lose her job,”
he says.

“She actually said ‘my boss is really
riding me?’”

“Yeah,” he says. “For a minute, I was
starting to think that maybe she hadn’t gotten that picture, but when she
started playing a little fast and loose with the double
entendres
…
Anyway, she said she doesn’t know when she’s going to be back. It looks like
I’ve got more than enough time to pack her shit.”

“Good for you,” I tell him. “It’s about
time you’ve-”

His arms are around me in an instant, and
he’s kissing me passionately. I wasn’t sure it was going to go this way
tonight, but I was kind of hoping…

He pulls away and we’re both breathing
heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have
done that.”

“Trust me,” I beam, “you did the right
thing.”

“No,” he says. “Cheating or not, Melissa
and I haven’t officially broken up yet. I know that’s just a technicality at
this point, but I really don’t want to be one of those guys. I don’t want to be
like that
fuckhead
boss of hers. If something happens
with us before her and I are done-”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Then you’re just doing
the same thing they’re doing and you lose your high ground and blah, blah,
blah.”

“I hope you understand,” he says.

“That depends on which part of me you’re
asking,” I say. “Yeah, I understand.”

It’s good to know he’s a standup guy like
that, but I’m standing here, still trembling with anticipation for something
that’s clearly not going to happen, at least not tonight.

Looks like me and my B.O.B. are going to
be seeing each other tonight.

Chapter
Ten

Benevolent Anarchy

Jace

Melissa gave me a call to tell me when she
landed, and that’s when I let her know that we were done.

That was three days ago and she has just
barely walked in the door.

“What the fuck?” she says as she comes
into the living room. All of her stuff is already packed and ready to go.

“How was your trip?” I ask.

“It was fine until you told me that you
were breaking up with me,” she says.

“What took you so long to get home?”

“Don’t you fucking play coy with me,” she
says. “I know it was you that sent those messages to Ty.”

“Actually,” I chuckle, “it wasn’t, but
that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you lied to me. You never had
any intention of breaking it off with Ty.”

“He has time for me,” she says. “He
makes
time for me.”

“I’ve tried making time for you,” I tell
her. “I’ve tried really fucking hard, but every time I tell you we should plan
something or every time I do something special for you, the best I ever get in
return is a lukewarm no.”

“Well, that’s because you-” she starts.

“You know, before we get into a blame game
that we both know I’m going to win, why don’t we, you know, not?” I ask. “It’s
not going to change anything and it’s just going to piss us both off more. You
need to find somewhere to go.”

“I
have
somewhere to go,” she says.

“Well, I know you’re not going to be
moving in with Ty,” I say. “How
is
his wife, anyway? Let me guess, he’s still giving you the ‘I’ll leave her, but
now’s
just not the time’ line, right?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” I tell her.
“Let me know when you’ve found an apartment. Until then, I’ll give you some
money for a hotel. I don’t want you or your crap in my house.”

“You’re such an asshole,” she says. “Whatever
happened to ‘we’ll work it out,’ huh? Whatever happened to ‘we’ll get through
this?
’”

“I don’t know,” I answer, “what
did
happen to all of that? From what I
can tell, you didn’t even bother taking a break from him.”

“You know what, you don’t know anything
about it,” she says. “He loves me and he
is
going to leave his wife for me. We’re in love.”

“Then why are you so pissed?” I ask. “If
everything’s going to work out with the two of you, why does it bother so much
that we’re over?”

“This has been going on longer than you
know. You think this just started a while ago? Well, you’re wrong. Why do you
think I wanted you to get a night job? It was so I could go out and be with
him.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” I tell her. “Although,
it did take you getting sloppy before I did.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
she asks.

“I think you wanted to get caught,” I tell
her. “I think you knew that you were doing the wrong thing, but you weren’t
willing to stop, either, so you started leaving a trail for me to follow.” I
sigh. “What happened, Melissa? When did you stop caring?”

She bites the inside of her cheek.

“I guess it really doesn’t matter. Anyway,
I’d like your key back now,” I tell her.

“I’m not giving you a damn thing until I
know I have all of my things,” she says.

“Go ahead and look through your boxes,” I
tell her. “Look through the apartment. I didn’t throw anything out. I’m done
being vindictive; I just want you out of here.”

“I can’t believe you’re throwing me out on
the street.”

“I’m not,” I tell her. “I already said
that I’d put you up in a hotel until you find another apartment. I’m not
throwing you out onto the street. I’m just throwing you out.”

She reaches in her pocket, takes her key
off of her keyring, and throws it onto the floor.

“Thank you,” I tell her. “Now, just let me
know where you’d like to stay for a while, and I’ll call some movers to pick
your stuff up. It’s probably going to take up a good amount of space in a
hotel, so I’ll even spring for a double room.”

All things considered, the fake trips to
Maine and California notwithstanding, I think I’m being pretty fair about all
of this. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m sure if the shoe were on the other foot,
Melissa would have just started throwing my stuff out the window.

She has a tendency to be a little dramatic
sometimes.

“I’ve got a place,” she says. “Ty’s been
renting for us for over a year.”

“Great,” I answer, trying to keep my anger
from boiling up to the surface. I pull the phone out of my pocket and pull up
the number for the movers I found the night she went to L.A.

I hand her the phone. It’s already
ringing.

“Yeah, hi,” she says. “I need to hire a
couple of guys to help me move. Today would be perfect, if we could work that
out…”

She walks out of the room to give the
specifics as, apparently, she doesn’t want me to know where her fuck pad is.

I really couldn’t care less about that.
There’s a lot to hurt about right now, but knowing where they’ve been doing
what they’ve been doing doesn’t matter in the slightest.

She comes back into the room and lobs the
phone more at me than to me.

“It’s going to cost an extra couple
hundred bucks, but they’re going to have some people come over in the next hour
or so,” she says.

“That’s good,” I tell her. “Until then,
why don’t you have a seat and I’ll make you some breakfast.”

If we’re going to be stuck in here
together for an hour, I may as well try to make it as civil as possible.

Even with everything, I don’t hate her. I
don’t even think she’s a fundamentally bad person. What pisses me off about the
situation isn’t so much that she’s been cheating on me — although that’s not
particularly fun — it’s that she’s been lying all this time.

That’s really the worst part about a
situation like this. It would be bad enough if she came to me one day and told
me what was going on, but having to find out on my own and then finding out
later that she just kept on lying…it makes me feel like such an idiot.

If she’d been honest, maybe I could have
seen a future for us, though things
have
been pretty fucked up for a long, long time. But just that simple, small level
of honesty would have told me that she cared enough to try.

That’s over now.

“Breakfast?” she asks. Yeah, it took her
that long to respond.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’ve got stuff for
French toast and eggs. That’s still your favorite, right?”

“Why would you make me breakfast?”

After running through the reasons in my
own head, I’m a little annoyed at having to explain it out loud, so I simply
tell her, “Because I don’t hate you.”

“Yeah,” she says. “French toast and eggs
sounds great.”

“All right. I’ll let you know when it’s
ready.”

“Okay,” she says, almost hanging her head.

So, I make breakfast. Nice guy that I am,
I don’t even try to poison her food.

Even before I found out about her and her
boss, I knew that I wasn’t happy. If anything, I should be thanking her for
setting me free.

Okay, I’m not that nice a guy.

Still, I don’t know how long I would have
stuck with the relationship if it weren’t for her and Ty. Although, I will say
that having met Grace, I can’t be certain it would have been too much longer.

After I kissed Grace that night we sent my
new ex and her adulterer to different corners of the country, I didn’t feel
right staying. I wanted to kiss her, and it felt damn good doing it, but I
wanted to be free and clear before anything happened.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t been answering
my phone calls.

I left her a message last night, letting
her know that I’d set up a meeting between her and Dr. Marcum, my old mentor
from med school, but if she got the message, she didn’t let me know.

“Do you need a hand in there?” Melissa
calls from the living room.

“I think I’ve got it under control, but
you’re welcome to come and talk to me,” I call back.

I really don’t hate her. I just hate what
she’s been doing.

Melissa comes in the room and she sits at
the counter silently for a while. “Do you have anyone?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have anyone on the side — a
girlfriend, a what if?”

“What do you mean ‘a what if?’” I ask
return.

“You know, somebody who you’re attracted
to, but you haven’t made a move because you were in a relationship,” she says.
“Do you have anyone like that?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I haven’t
really been looking.”

Now, I’m lying. I’ve never really thought
of Grace as my “what if,” but being around her has been the most fun and the
most frustration that I’ve endured in a long time. Call me a masochist, but
that’s always been my favorite combination.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I think so.”

“What’s she like?” Melissa asks.

“Nothing’s happened.”

“I’m not saying that. I really want to
know.”

I know I’m the one who offered to make her
breakfast, but this has gotten to be pretty surreal.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t
want to,” she says. “Although, if you’ve been fucking her behind my back, I
think you and I are going to have to have some words.”

“I told you, nothing’s happened,” I
answer, but Melissa just titters.

“I’m fucking with you,” she says. “I’m
glad you have someone. I hope it works out.”

“Things were good for a while with the two
of us, weren’t they?” I ask. “I mean, we are where we are now, and that’s the
way it’s got to be, but we used to be happy together, didn’t we?”

“I don’t know. I’ve actually been asking
myself that question over the last couple of days. I know that I do feel sorry
for hurting you, but when I look back, all I can think is that we spent so much
time trying to make each other happy or trying to stay out of each other’s way
that we kind of lost sight of ourselves. That’s how I feel, anyway.”

“I know what you mean,” I tell her,
cracking an egg into a bowl.

“That’s not to say that we haven’t had our
good times,” she continues. “I just think that we were never really meant to be
with each other that way. I think we made better friends than we did
significant others.”

“You’re right,” I agree. “I remember when
we first started hanging out, back when you were with one of those morons from
that business frat.”

“He wasn’t a moron!” she protests. “I will
have you know that Charles Vincent Dunmore III was a very intelligent man.”

“I’d forgotten how ridiculous his name
was,” I laugh. “Still, even though I was always envious of him and those other
guys you dated before we got together, we really were at our best when we were
with different people.”

“I think that was our problem,” she says.
“We spent so much time idealizing each other because our own relationships
sucked so much that we forgot to think about whether we’d actually work as a
couple.”

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” I tell her.

“What, that you’re kicking me out because
I’ve been screwing my boss?” she asks, and I can’t believe we’re both laughing
about it.

“No, I’m glad that we’re not splitting up
by screaming at each other.”

“It’s kind of weird.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agree. “But I think it’s
a good weird.”

“I guess so,” she says. “You never did
tell me about
your
‘what if’ girl.”

“I don’t think of her that way,” I tell
her. “That sounds kind of pompous the way that came out, but I guess I’ve been
idealizing her the way I idealized you.”

“Be careful there,” she says. “I don’t
know her, and I certainly can’t predict the future — if I could, I’m pretty
sure that breakfast and a conversation on a day like today would have still
taken me by surprise — I’m just saying that we’ve both been there and look
where we’re at now.”

“Yeah,” I respond. “I would tell you to be
careful, but I think it might be a little late for that.”

“Probably,” she says and snickers.

“Still, though, I don’t want to see you
get hurt. I’m probably going to be pissed off at you for a while, and I don’t
know if we’re going to be able to be friends or not, but that doesn’t mean I’ve
stopped caring.”

“You know,” she says, “I think this is the
most civil, open conversation we’ve had with each other for a very long time.
How’s that for irony?”

“Maybe it’s because neither of us feels
like we have to pretend that everything’s been just fine between us. I don’t
know about you, but I feel like a huge load has been lifted from my shoulders.”