Page 83 of Meet Hate Love
It’s not for me…
Bubbles danced across the screen. Stopped. Started again. Stopped.
Is this you trying to get me back for the condoms in the pharmacie?
Guess we’ll find out when you get back to NYC.
To each their own, but you are not shoving a butt plug in my ass.
I felt that was a necessary disclosure before I texted that I miss you.
Something warm had bloomed in my chest every time he’d send that.
I miss you, too.
Can’t wait to see you Friday.
It would be three and a half more days before he came home. And to my lovesick heart, that seemed like forever.
I tucked my phone inside my purse, grabbed the pigtailed butt plug, a piggy mask, and a set of purple anal beads from the shelf then went to stand beside Margot.
She glanced down at the toys. “So, Vance is into role-playing?” She waggled her red brows.
“No. He’s not.” I shook the butt toys. “This is my engagement gift to Kate.”
Margot grinned. “She’ll completely lose it. Pretend prude.”
She would. I could just imagine her opening the perfectly wrapped gift and pulling it out for all of Bon Apple Tea to see. She’d probably chuck it across the room. Jimbo’s face would most likely turn puce, and I’d delight in the carnage like the slightly horrible person I’d accepted I was.
* * *
Outside of thenightly sext exchanges between Vance and me—and I mean, on my end, they were really terrible—the rest of that week was complete crap.
Wednesday, I’d gone home to a repaired ceiling. But the excitement was short-lived, thanks to the mountain of cat shit all over my living room and bedspread.
A worker had evidently left a window cracked, which Matilda, my neighbor’s youngest cat, had found when she’d scaled the ledge between our apartments. She’d climbed through, shit all over the sofa and my bed, and shredded my curtains by the time I’d come home.
Thursday, Kate had texted. Repeatedly. Asking for an RSVP.
I replied that it would be me plus one. And that, no, the plus one was not Margot.
Her response:
I’m glad you’ve finally moved on from Jimbo.
Glad I’d moved on from Jimbo? Gratitude from the sister he’d fucked toforceme to move on. I didn’t give two naked backward flips about Jimbo at that point, but the audacity… I’d had to push up from my desk at work, hightail it to the employee bathroom, and turn on the hand dryer just so I could scream.
Of course, cat shit and my arrogant sister weren’t enough for my wretched bad luck. Because on the subway ride home, a woman changed her toddler’s crap-filled diaper on the empty seat beside me. Fine.
What made it horrible was that just as she’d yanked it off, the train came to a screeching halt, and the stinky diaper flew out of her hand and into my lap with a sickening splat.
I’d never run home so fast in my life.
By the time I’d showered, Grace had let herself in with her spare key. Out of all my siblings, I was closest to her. Three years my junior, Grace preferred Dad over Mom and absolutely detested the magnet board. Even though, as the baby of the family, she’d spent more time in the number one spot than anyone else.
I came out of the bathroom, towel-drying my hair as I explained to her what had happened on the subway. “I showered three times and still don’t feel clean.”
She pulled her dark hair into a ponytail, then grabbed my laptop from the dresser and plopped onto my unmade bed. “It’s just poop. You’d think you, of all people, would be used to things shitting on you.”
