Page 78 of How to Get Revenge on a Cheating Ex
Bailey
Toni’s waitingfor me when I get off my shift.
“You know I don’t need an escort, right?” I head over to where she’s sitting, bent over as she scrolls through something on her phone.
Her curls bounce as she tosses her head back to look up at me. “I just got off too. Figured maybe you’d want some company while you wait for your ride.”
I narrow my eyes, but I’m still smiling. “I’d love some company, but I swear I don’t need you looking out for me every second of the day.”
She ignores that. We’ve been through this already at lunch, when she sat down beside me at the otherwise empty table in the staff lounge.
Is it fun being a pariah? No. But I wasn’t lying when I said I could handle the whispers and the stares. In fact, I’ve been in a great mood all day, and not even rude comments or mocking laughter can bring me down.
Toni and I are going against the tide as we head toward the exit. There’s a concert in the amphitheater tonight—just local musicians and then the main event, a one-hit-wonder band from the nineties. But in this small town, any live music is a big deal.
We have to weave our way through the crowds pouring in, and it means we’re smushed together by the time we hit the gates where Zack’s supposed to pick me up.
Toni makes no move to leave as I stand at the pickup spot.
I start to laugh. “Honestly, Toni, I appreciate the concern, but I can handle being on my own for a few minutes.”
Toni crosses her arms as she turns to face me. “Okay, seriously, Bailey? This whole Little Miss Sunshine routine is killing me.” She holds up her phone. “There’s no way you’re this okay with all the stuff they’re saying.”
I glance at her phone. “First of all, Janie made it almost impossible for me to read all that stuff.” Not that I didn’t know what people were saying. I’d seen enough before Janie went all rogue hacker on me.
And what I didn’t see, I’d heard when Grayson’s friends talked about me in passing at work all day—so loudly I would have had to be deaf not to hear.
“And second...” I shrug because I don’t know how to explain now any more than I had earlier today when Zack told me I was creeping him out with my good mood.
The memory makes me grin. “I’m okay. I’m honestly okay today.”
Her look says she thinks I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. I don’t know. All I know is that this morning, for the first time in weeks, I feel...good. Great, even. Like a weight’s been removed from my chest. Like I can take a deep breath for the first time in years.
Nothing’s really changed, and yet everything feels different today. I don’t know how long this bliss is going to last, but for right now, I want to hold on to it. No one can take it away.
“Grayson.” Toni’s sharp tone snaps me out of my thoughts. She’s looking at someone behind me.
Oh crap.I turn slowly.
“Hey, Toni,” Grayson says, his attention on my friend. I give her a quick look and see that she’s giving him a little smile, and pink stains her cheeks.
Is she...is sheblushing?
I turn back to Grayson, who shoves his hands in his pockets as his serious gaze meets mine. “Hey, Bae.”
You don’t get to call me that anymore!I literally have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming that at him.
He tilts his head to the side, his eyes all soft and warm. “You okay?”
I tense. I...did not see this coming. Of all the ways I thought our first post-breakup interaction would go, this was not it.
I nod. “You?”
He shrugs.
For a minute I think neither of us is going to say anything. But the way he’s rocking on his heels, the way his hands are shoved into his pockets in that boyishaw-shuckskind of way that makes me want to shove a fist in his face...
“Is it true?” I ask.
