Page 23 of How to Get Revenge on a Cheating Ex
She casts me a suspicious sidelong look to see if I’m making fun of her, but I’m not nearly as much of an ass as she thinks I am.
Okay, fine. Maybe I am. But I’m not cruel and I don’t mock people in pain.
She must see I’m not laughing, not even a little, because she swallows and I see her throat work as she fights tears. “Yeah. Heartbroken.”
She turns back to the net.Thwack.
I jerk back as the softball hits the net with so much force I’m surprised the old equipment doesn’t break. “Damn, Bailey. Youshould be glad your dad never found out what heartbreak did for your pitching arm. He never would have kept you from dating for so long.”
To my surprise, and no doubt hers…she laughs.
It’s a sweet, high-pitched little sound that is shockingly close to a giggle.
She clamps her mouth shut and I have to swallow a laugh of my own. Bailey is so not a person who giggles. A, because she’s serious. So very serious. She has no idea how to have fun. And B, because she’s Bailey, and she prides herself on being above anything as childish as giggling.
Maybe A and B are one and the same, but whatever. That’s not the point. The point is the little sound is happy and it gives me hope. Not for me, but for her. If she can still laugh, she’ll be okay.
Just maybe not anytime soon.
“What are you going to do?” I ask when the silence stretches too long.
She shakes her head, but she doesn’t ask what I mean. Sheknowswhat I mean. Is she going to kick Grayson’s ass to the curb? Is she going to give him a chance to explain?
I have no idea why I’m so tense as I wait for her answer. Probably because that jackwad hurt me too, and I don’t want to see him walk away without paying a price.
She sighs. “I don’t know.”
I nod. Fair enough. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
She tosses the ball in her hands as she thinks that over. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until I do.”
“You’re working tomorrow, right?”
She nods, turning to look at me again. “It’s going to be torture.”
“Nah, it’s probably for the best that you have a distraction.” I speak like a man who knows. Because I am. Between memoriesof my dad and talk of Grayson, I feel like the world’s leading expert on the topic of betrayal.
I wince at the thought. Not exactly where one wants to be in life. I’d far rather be an expert on beer pong and getting laid, and maybe I will be by the end of the summer. But right now I’m the freakin’ king of rejects.
Awesome.
Bailey’s eyeing me oddly and I can’t tell if she’s really seeing me at all.
“We’re going through the hiring paperwork tomorrow,” she says slowly. “As a manager, I’m in charge of choosing the employees for my zone.”
And there’s my Bailey. The girl who can turn any conversation boring in the blink of an eye.
“Oh yeah?” I can’t even pretend to sound interested. With everything going on right now, does she honestly care about who’s going to be working the ice cream stand and who’s on rides?
Apparently so, because her eyes have some life to them for the first time since I’d come out here. “I was going to give Grayson a job with me in the souvenir shop.”
Of course she was. It’s the cushiest job at the theme park. Standing around in air-conditioning all day and dealing with grown-ups rather than little sticky-faced terrors?
And she wasgoingto give it to Grayson.
I grin the moment I get it. It might not be much, but prissy, stick-up-her-butt Bailey is thinking about revenge. Small, petty-ass revenge, but I like it.
It’s a start.
