The Affair: a New Adult Romance novelette

The Affair

a novelette

Olivia Grace

Copyright @ 2014 by Olivia Grace. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages to be posted online, printed in a newspaper or magazine.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be assumed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

One

“Well, if it isn’t Karrie Stahl.”

Those words swam through my ear like the violent flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. The voice sounded like it was coming from the female identical twin of Satan himself. That devilish slur was followed by a recognizable hyena-like snicker that made my pale freckled skin crawl.

Hesitantly, I looked away from the register that still reflected the last number two combo meal that I’d rung up.

Our eyes met.

My heart sank.

The high pitched sound of her cackling laughter sent goose bumps flailing all over my body.

You’ve got to be kidding me
, I thought.
My first day at this dump and my high school rival walks in the door.

Despite my humiliation, I lifted my head high.

I adjusted my McDonald’s uniform shirt.

I smiled brightly.

Then, just as management taught the new employees during the “extensive customer service training,” I recited, “Hi. Welcome to McDonalds. May I help you?”

Just saying those words made my breakfast threaten to violently upchuck all over the counter top. Laying eyes on Nicole Richards, watching her judging and cynical smirk, made the urgency to throw up that much worse.

Her condemning eyes were right. This wasn’t where I thought I would be when I graduated from high school a year ago. I thought that I would have been enrolled in a top Ivy League school. I thought that I would be living on campus by now, with a roommate that was my best friend. That best friend and I would be in a sorority by now. I would be swooning over frat boys and jocks.

I thought that life would be, at the very least, utter perfection.

Instead, life was a horrid mess. I felt like I was in a never-ending nightmare on Elm Street. Surely, Freddy Krueger was chasing me. He had to be behind me, in the kitchen area, hiding behind the grill and waiting to attack me with his knives.

I was living in the same small town that I grew up in. I wasn’t at a top Ivy League school. I was enrolled at a community college. I didn’t have the best friend roommate either. I was living with my distant, nonchalant, and a jerk–most–of–the–time boyfriend.

Life was indeed not perfect.

It was far from perfect.

So far from perfect that I couldn’t even fathom what perfect felt like.

And the longer Nicole Richards stood in front of me, glaring at me as if seeing me behind that counter had made her entire year, I realized more and more how far away from perfection I was.

“Yes, I’d like a number three…and a pic of you to tweet!”

Then this bitch had the nerve to lift her iPhone to take the picture!

Luckily, there were very few people in the restaurant to witness my social media demise. There was only an elderly couple in the corner that always ate McDoubles; no fries, no soda, just sandwiches. They were so old that even with hearing aids they wouldn’t hear the commotion. I could hear my co–workers on the assembly line gossiping about chicks they planned to bang that weekend. Shaquana, or at least I think that’s how it’s pronounced, was at the window taking orders with a lot of attitude.

“Not so fast, Blondie. Put the phone down.”

My body whispered a sigh of relief as I heard Sabrina’s voice come into the restaurant like my knight in shining armor. She was indeed shining, with her fabulous blinged out arm candy and Estee Lauder glass lip gloss. With all of her accessories and trinkets, she looked like a walking holiday.

She was my best friend. Now, she was also my super heroine. She’d flown into this fast food chain and saved the day. She was saving me from social media humiliation.

“Schmidt.” Nicole was damn near snarling at Sabrina as she approached her.

“Richards,” Sabrina retorted.

They looked like feminine sergeants, approaching each other with threat across their brows and referring to one another by last name.

“This isn’t the army, guys,” I muttered, nearly in tears produced by sheer embarrassment.

I let out a faint moan that signaled my oncoming death, if this bullshit didn’t come to an end.

But neither one of these hyenas heard me. One to never back down from a good fight, Sabrina approached Nicole like a powerful lioness. “Why don’t you get out of here? Leave her alone. At least she’s making an honest living; not screwing old men to pay for her shopping sprees, like you.”

Surely, I should have been calling my manager, because the lobby was about to turn into a violent unscripted episode of the Bad Girls Club.

But by God’s good grace, Nicole smacked her lips, whipped her blonde clip–ins, and left.

Along with the click clack of her heels against the greasy floor, I could hear her insulting my and Sabrina’s very existence.

“Good thing I came to patronize you on your first day,” Sabrina replied with a teasing smile.

“Yea, good thing you did.”

I couldn’t even look Sabrina in the eyes. She was carrying a Celine bag. I was wearing a black cap that read “McCafe.” She was wearing the latest fashion. I was wearing a tag that read “How May I Help You.”

Something wasn’t right about this horrid picture.

No matter how much my face burned red with shame, Sabrina smiled at me like I had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

She asked, through her perfect white teeth, “Isn’t it your lunch time?”

I nodded with a sigh.

“Cool. Grab us two fish filet meals and let’s go sit in the Benz. You get a discount, right?”

Sabrina was obviously way better off than me. She was only taking classes at Purdue to satisfy her daddy, who financed her everything: that arm candy, that fabulous Celine handbag, those pearly white veneers, and those undetectable bleach blond infused extensions.

God, if those were authentic Christian Louboutin sneakers, I was going to die a slow death on that carotid floor.

Sabrina’s father was a tycoon at the BP refinery a mile outside of town in Whiting, Indiana. He probably made in a year what I would make in twenty years working at good old Mickey D’s. Sabrina’s mother was a stay at home mom that still cleaned Sabrina’s massive bedroom and did Sabrina’s laundry. My father took a cab to Splitsville when I was ten years old. Since, and with little help from my father, my mother had been doing a very bad job of trying to take care of us financially.

Many people don’t understand how Sabrina and I became closer than sisters. In the back of my mind, I knew damn well why. I was the only person that didn’t make Sabrina feel like the irate, loud, and obnoxious spoiled brat that she is. In turn, she was the only person that never made me feel poor.

We first met in eighth grade. I was standing at my locker, acting as if I didn’t hear Colette Cobb totally ripping me to shreds in front of our entire class. When Jeff Dolder joined in on the roast, saying that I looked like Amelia Bedelia, Sabrina smacked him. He called her a slut, and I attacked him.

We both got suspended for three days.

We were soul mates.

So, since the eighth grade, we stuck together like glue.

As we stepped outside carrying our high in fat and tremendously high calorie lunch, Sabrina slipped on her shades to hide from the September sun. Even though fall was creeping into our lives, the summer was stubborn and didn’t want to leave. Of course no one was complaining. Midwesterners could never get enough sun or heat anyway.

I was chewing on square shaped fish and listening to Sabrina complain about Lincoln, her boyfriend, as I inhaled the new car smell of her Benz. The god damn seats felt better than the Walmart sheets on mine and Tyler’s bed.

Suddenly, I heard a welcome sound. My heart nearly stopped when I heard the familiar chiming notification. Wildly, I fought to get my Galaxy 3 out of my Michael Kors knock off that Sabrina graciously gave to me once her dad bought her a real one. I knew that the notification meant that
he
had instant messaged me. Though we had been chatting for most of the morning, I had to see what loving words he had to say now.

Sabrina laughed her ass off as I typed my password in at record speed: 5683 (
love
).

“Look at you! Are you kidding me?!”

I hissed at Sabrina’s teasing as my once stilled heart now skipped a beat when I saw his gorgeous face in the Facebook Messenger bobble head. Pressing it, our chat box opened, revealing mushy words that we had spoken to each other an hour prior.

Hey, Gorgeous
, was what he had just sent me.

He
was Justin Hunter.

Three months ago, as I sat in class awaiting the end of the last semester of my first year of college, I got an instant message from him. Usually, I didn’t pay attention to the random messages that I received on Facebook. Usually they were from lowlifes slumming for cunt on social media. That day, I was so bored in class that I actually responded. Then his sweet words of casual conversation got my attention. I looked through his photo album and was immediately sucked in. We talked for an hour about nothing. It continued on like that for three months: gradually growing from hour long chats to twenty-four hour emotionally connected lip service. We text messaged, instant messaged, and sent each other pictures sun up to sun down.

I typed,
Hey, Handsome
, with the corniest smile on my face. I was full of lust and excitement. I was sure that my skin had turned the same bright red color of my hair.

I know! I know! I had a boyfriend! But the attention that Justin paid me took a big dump on Tyler’s lackadaisical attempts to call me when he needed me to pick up his Beck’s and telling me to shut up during the football game.

Justin Hunter:
At the gig?

Karrie Stahl:
Unfortunately. If you can call this dump a gig.

I could hear Sabrina uttering condemning words as I melted with every word that I read and typed.

She was disgusted. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

She was ashamed of me. “You can’t be serious.”

She chastised me. “Who
are
you?”

But I could pay full attention to nothing but the blue eyed profile pic smiling back at me.

Justin Hunter:
LOL. Well, just wanted to tell you that I love you. I’m at the “dump” too.

Gosh!
He was a twenty–three year old hunk of perfectly tanned skin, dark hair that fell in his face, with the perfect smile, and muscles that I fantasized about tracing with my tongue. He had abs that made me just melt all over. Ocean blue eyes captivated me as I stared at his pictures online.

After two weeks of heavy flirtation, he told me that he loved me. I could not deny how in that short time, I had grown to love him as well.

It was amazing how he had me feeling this way without even hearing his voice or touching his body. He knew that I had a boyfriend, so he refused to take this any further by calling or meeting me in person. I had yet to muster the courage to force a meeting or even a Skype session because, honestly, I wondered what he wanted with the awkward, skinny, low budget chick that I was.

My cheeks flushed as I typed:
I love you too.

Plus, although he knew about Tyler, I felt like such an awesome guy deserved to be with someone with enough self-esteem to leave her jackass boyfriend.

Justin Hunter:
TTYL, Gorgeous.

I let out a high pitched sigh as I dropped my Galaxy back into my knock off.

Sabrina looked at me like I disgusted her, as a dollop of tartar sauce dangled precipitously from her chin. I couldn’t hide my smile, nor did I even try.

Then she rolled her eyes dismissively. “You can’t be serious with this Catfish guy.”

“I am not being Catfished!”

“How do you know, Karrie?! You haven’t even talked to the guy on the phone!”

“That’s my fault.” I was always willing to defend Justin. “He refuses to get too involved while I am still with Tyler.”

“How do you know that this isn’t some weirdo from high school playing a cruel joke?!” Then Sabrina’s full lips formed into a surprised circle. “Holy shit! What if it’s Nicole Richards?!”

“Stop it, Sabrina! Even Nicole Richards isn’t that evil.”

Sabrina sighed in exasperation. “God, I’ve taught you nothing. After all these years, did not one single solitary ounce of common sense rub off on you?”

Little did she know, Sabrina had taught me well. The itty bitty amount of her confidence that had rubbed off on me is what gave me the courage to even fall for Justin.

I had more than an ounce of common sense. And not an ounce of it thought that there was anything fake about Justin Hunter or our love. The love between us was too intense and passionate to be anything but real.