Page 2 of Villainous Summer

I cursed under my breath. I could have stayed in the flat. Shopped and went out to the pub with my new friends and got takeout. Instead, I had paid an extra two hundred dollars to change my ticket and be dumped in the sky.

Not one to process my feelings alone, I screenshot the announcement and sent it to my girlfriends.

Autumn: That complete dickwad. I’m going to egg his house.

Devin: I’ll get the TP

Wren: I never liked him.

Autumn: I had a bad feeling about him. When you said he doesn’t like animals because they’re too messy, I should have known.

Neither Wren nor Devin was close enough to Ridgewood to succumb to petty vandalism, but I appreciated their rage.

My friend’s words pulsed under my skin.

Hours after seeing the picture, I found myself standing in his driveway.

With narrowed eyes, I willed myself to walk away. If I acted right then, I still had a shot to get my ride back, and no one would know I was here.

His rented home resembled the one I had spent with him those two weeks, when I had been falling for a liar. Same bright blue siding, a basketball hoop over the garage, and a cooler on the porch. Blue printed curtains hung in a window. An oversized sign beside the front door exclaimed, “Oh, hello!” in gigantic calligraphy. Over the peephole was a fake sunflower wreath, complementing a row of dying potted daffodils on the steps.

Being there was a bad idea. Nothing good could come from confronting him. Maybe it was the three overpriced vodka ginger ales I had slammed after getting off the plane. Maybe it was my friend’s vitriol. Whatever it may have been, I was teetering on the edge of an all-too-familiar anger, the same fury that made my high school English teacher cry when she demanded Autumn change her top because she was distracting the boys. The same one that caused a man to back into a tree, who had tried to get away from me when his car door hit mine.

I didn’t need to confront him. I could’ve been mature, the better person, and leave Cory and his cheating ways behind.

Sitting in the spot my car would’ve been parked, a newer red coupe had a license plate frame infested with rhinestones, a monstrosity. In script letters, it read His Blue.

That was it. Red glazed over my vision.

With the champagne bottle, I marched up the drive. The doormat was made of coir with Probably at Target painted in red-and-black script letters.

Pounding on the door, I didn’t stop until it was wrenched open. The fake flower wreath swung up and whacked the white-painted wood.

Cory stood on the other side. He blinked at me as if I were a mirage.

The bottle’s foil seal dug into my palm, centering me as I stared him down. He looked smaller, shorter, and less muscular than when I had left.

Had he changed, or was it the memory of him I had built up in my head?

“Summer?” He glanced behind me, sucking in a breath. “What—I thought you were in London until Friday? I—“

“I guess we were both wrong about things, weren’t we?” Sticking out my lower lip, I feigned pity.

“Uh—“

His eyes darted around.

Likely, this fiancée was nearby or would be expected at any minute.

Good, I could only hope she knew what a scumbag her fiancé was.

“I heard congratulations are in order?” I offered a sickly sweet smile, cocking my head. “Locked it down in five months? That’s an amazing feat. Good for you two. Where’s Kodi? That’s her name, isn’t it? I should be able to congratulate the woman you’ve been fooling for the past four months.”

Yanking my elbow, he whipped me to the left and ushered me down to the walkway. “You need to get out of here.”

Breaking free of his grip, I pushed the champagne bottle at him. “To celebrate with your fiancée. I got it before I caught the early flight. Of course, I assumed I’d be celebrating with you, but you had other plans, didn’t you?”

“So, you know.” He assessed me, with his arms stiff at his side. “Did you have one of your nosy friends check up on me?”

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