Page 18 of Over You
Coffee splattered the pages of Faustus when I choked on my drink.
Lottie had quickly become my closest friend. She was hilarious, kind and caring. However, she had one fatal flaw: she’d recently fallen in love with my soon-to-be ex-husband. Who, to her defense, she had no idea I knew.
We had bonded on the train, and she had offered to show me around her town. Six months later, I was still here, renting her spare room because Salisbury was nothing like Beverly Hills, and Lottie was about as far away from pill-popping socialites as I could get. And while I had told her about Spencer, I had neglected to tell her exactlywhohe was.
“Oh, God. Are you okay?” She handed me a wad of paper napkins while I rubbed at my throat and nodded.
“Wrong pipe.”
“It’s alright, Georgia.” Tom patted my back. “They make me sick too. Bunch of eye-liner-wearing dildos.”
“You’re just jealous,” Lottie said, then directed her gaze back at me. “Can you believe it?” She swooned. “Spencer Hailstorm, Georgia!”
My heart flip-flopped. Much to my dismay, his name still got to me. Bad. A mixture of hate and regret sprinkled with a little bit of worry.
Lottie clasped her hands underneath her chin. Lust fogged her brown eyes. “Can you imagine being close enough to touch him?”
How I wished I couldn’t. “Nope. Sure can’t.”
Tom’s chair scraped over the floor. “Be right back.” He started toward the booth of girls he’d been gawking at, and they, of course, scooted over to make room.
Lottie took a sip of tea with a roll of her eyes. “He’s such a tosser.”
While Lottie went on about the show and how much she loved Spencer, my mind wandered, and I found myself focusing on the coffee mug clutched in my grasp at the thought of how perfect Spencer’s fingers felt digging into my waist. How raspy his voice was when he whispered, “I love you” while buried inside me.Stop.When I walked away, he wasn’t that guy. He wasn’t. . . And it didn’t matter because that pull in my stomach was hate, not yearning. I was over Spencer Hailstorm. Indefinitely, assuredly over him.
“I’m trying to decide between two outfits.” Lottie grabbed one of the bags from the floor and unloaded a pair of jeans, two blouses, some lime-green leggings, and the last thing she pulled out was a shiny, new copy ofRolling Stone. Spencer front and center.
“Maybe it’s in the other bag.” She leaned over to rummage through sacks while I grabbed the magazine.
Thick, black eyeliner rimmed Spencer’s storm-cloud eyes. Specks of gray and green embedded within the blue popped thanks to HD photography. The scar that ran across the bridge of his nose had been erased in edits, and for some reason, that bothered me.
Five years ago, he and I were in a rundown bar on the outskirts of Van Nuys. An old, leather-vested motorcycle guy slapped my ass when I passed his table and then made a show of asking me to suck his dick. Before I could flip him the bird, Spencer had popped the biker in the mouth with his fist, punched him in the eye, and then took a beer bottle and smashed it over the guy’s skull.
We had made it three feet from the door before Biker Bob caught up to us and returned the sentiment.
One ER visit we couldn’t afford and seven stitches later. . . And the editor had just deleted that part of our history like it had never existed.
“He’s a babe, isn’t he?” Lottie ripped the price tag from a lace top.
I gave an absent nod, already flipping to page sixteen to see what the article titled:The Legend of a Rock Godwas about.
I got one paragraph in before my chest tightened.Never adopted. Never accepted. Entirely unwanted untilfamefound me.
He used to tell me he was unwanted until he found me. . . I placed the magazine face-down on the table. It didn’t matter.Iwasn’t even the same person anymore.
“Okay. So. Faustus. . .”
9
Spencer
The edge of the infinity pool appeared to drop into the valley. The day’s last light cast golden hues over the bright-green palm leaves. Distant rooftops lay hidden behind the haze of California heat while my bare chest baked like an iguana under a heat lamp.
As a kid growing up in Van Nuys, I had always thought it was shitty how the rich people had their massive, cock-stroking houses perched on this hill. Lording over us.Behold what you will never have.When did I turn into all the things I had once hated?I couldn’t blame her for leaving.
No matter how I tried to fight it, I thought about her every day. Her and that long, jet-black hair that never behaved the way she wanted. If Georgia Anne wanted it straight, it curled. If she wanted it curled, it went flat. I may have only been nineteen years old when I had spotted her nestled in the corner of the roof where she’d thought the shadows had kept her hidden. But not even darkness could hide beauty like hers. It was like the night trying to hide the dawn—there was a fight, but light always won, just like her beauty.
My phone buzzed beside me on the lounge. Rays of sun hit the screen, making the incoming number invisible, but I was more than thankful for the distraction, so I swiped the screen. “Yeah?”
