Page 35 of Exrated
“Yeah, I know, right?”
“And he was gonna take you to dinner—after he got finished atwork? Oh, what a fucking asshole.” She stops walking. “I mean, really, he’s a fucking porn star?”
I give a half shrug, my stomach churning again. “Yeah.”
“Ugh.” Heather pours two more shots, sliding one across the coffee table to me. I grab it because why the hell not?
Exhaling, I sink further into the couch, waiting for that tingly salvation of the Rumplemints to kick in. “I’m gonna have to quit,” I say.
“Wha—Oh, oh, hell to the fuck no!” Heather shakes her head furiously before taking her second shot. “You arenotquitting.”
“Uh, yeah. I am. There is no way in hell I am going to go back in there and watch that shit again. I mean, it was one thing when it was complete strangers, but that—Tyler, I mean, I just…I can’t.”
“Mm-mm. No ma’am. You are not quitting.”
“Are you serious, would you want to subject yourself to that?”
“No, but the job is only temporary, suck it up. Don’t back down.”
“Heather…”
“He deserves it.”
“Deserves what? How is that gonna—”
Heather holds her finger up. “Do you think he wants you there anymore than you want to be there?”
“Well…no…”
“I mean, did he act embarrassed at all?”
“A little…”
“Alittle, what the—never mind. You are not gonna let him win. End of it.”
I glare at her. “Heather…”
“No. You fucking hold your ground. You stay there. You make him uncomfortable.”
A slow, sick smile twists over her lips as she pours two more shots.
I sit, holding the drink in my hand wondering how in the hell in that warped little mind of hers, my staying and watching my ex film porn after porn is payback to him because, to me, it sounds like self-inflicted torture. “Okay,” I say slowly.
“He regrets it.” She smiles. “Think about it. What is one of the worst feelings in the world? You told me yourself when we were talking about exes. You told me the worst part about Tyler breaking it off with you was knowing that he’d moved on, that you meant nothing to him, right?”
Feeling that I meant so little to the person my entire world had revolved around was a slap in the face. “Yeah,” I say. “That’s a shitty feeling.”
“Well, karma’s a motherfucking bitch. Make him believe he means so little to you that you can watch him fuck other people. Make him want you and then burn his ass to the ground.”
I swallow. That buzzy warmth from the Rumplemints has wrapped around me like a drunken cocoon. “It’s so vindictive.”
“Well, he fucked you and didn’t tell you he was a porn star. I mean, what if you’d gone out to dinner with him, fucked him again? What if you started dating? I mean, what the hell, Jemma? This deserves a kick in the nuts if you ask me.”
I twist the shot glass in my hand.
“Plus, why give up a good paying job? I mean, really.”
She’s right. I shouldn’t quit that job and give up my income just because he’s a shit head. “God, it’s gonna suck.”
