Page 68 of Character Flaws
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
My head falls on his shoulder as I succumb to the pleasures his fingers are bestowing. Heavenly perfection.
“That you’re a naughty…”
Before he can finish his comment or do any of those naughty things he knows I was thinking about, Theo’s interrupted by a bright and chipper voice above us.
Both our heads snap up to see a pair of shapely legs in short-shorts.
“Omigod, I thought that was you, Theo,” the voice greets, as my gaze makes its way up the woman’s body to her face.
Theo’s hand flies out from under the blanket and he jumps to his feet. The speed in which he does this sends me toppling back onto the blanket with anoomph.
I’m startled and confused at his reaction. But then things are made plenty clear when I hear him reply to our visitor’s greeting.
“Alyssa. Hey, what are you doing here?”
She titters with a light, airy laugh. But the sweetness in her response is muted by the bitchy glare she gives me when she looks down at me, where I’m trying to recalibrate myself on the blanket.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. I’m just sitting over there with my friends” – she points behind us to a group of college-aged kids – “And I thought it was you, so I wanted to come say hello.”
I push to my feet and stand awkwardly looking between the two of them. Theo seems incredibly flustered and Alyssa...well, she seems calculatingly evil.
Her blonde hair is styled in an intricate braid that wraps around from her forehead to the side of her head. Definitely not something I could ever have pulled off – one, because of my curls and two, because I suck at braiding. But she wears it beautifully. Like a petite Greek goddess of Light.
She’s fucking bubbly. Perky. And I hate her because I can see underneath all of her shininess. Underneath lurks a two-faced rat.
I clear my throat, trying to get Theo’s attention, who’s shifting between his feet and gaping at Alyssa. When he doesn’t give any introduction, mostly because he’s in some sort of tractor-beam trance caused by Alyssa’s evil powers, I shove my hand out in her direction.
She giggles and wiggles her fingers at me.
“Hi, I’m Joey. And you are?”
Of course, I know who she is. But in this moment, I want to make her feel bad. For leaving Theo. She doesn’t deserve him. And maybe I don’t either, but at least I’m with him now.
She tilts her head and in that instant, seeing the nasty gleam in her eyes, thinly disguised as curiosity, I know she’s going to come out swinging in that passive-aggressive mid-West manner that I know far too well.
“I’m Alyssa. Theo’s girlfriend of two years. We lived together, as well. Theo and I have quite a long history, don’t we baby?”
She directs the question to Theo, but keeps her eyes on me, the edge of her smile not quite meeting her eyes.
I glance at Theo who just says, “Uh-huh.”
What is happening to him? He’s a mumbling, bumbling robot. Whatever power this girl has over him, I want to unleash my own and destroy her while he watches.
“Oh, that’s so cool. History is so important because it always tends to teach us something about what we do and don’t want in our lives. Doesn’t it Theo?”
I know I’m being terribly catty, but this girl…she needs to be shown what’s up. Theo’s admitted to me how manipulating she was during the course of their relationship and how he had been sucked in and then spit out.
Apparently, her reappearance seems to have altered his abilities for speech, because he responds with another, “Uh-huh.”
Oh my poor Theo. Not your finest moment, dude.
I continue. “And it’s never a good idea to repeat history.”
Alyssa glares at me in the only way women know how when it comes to jealousy over a man, and then reaches out to grab behind Theo’s neck, a scheming smirk etches across her lips, her blazing blue eyes focused on me.
And then, before I know what’s happening, Alyssa leans up on her tiptoes and kisses Theo on his cheek. The same cheek that I’d been nuzzling against not five minutes earlier. The same one that had been between my legs earlier that morning.
