“Every person on the planet who hates me is here tonight—and, by the way”—I look to Roxy—“I’m including my own mother in that equation.” Quite possibly my sister, but that’s probably not true—Izzy and I just aren’t that close.
“My mother doesn’t hate you.” Roxy averts her eyes as if this were an impossibility.
Baya touches her hand to her chest while her dark hair quivers back. “And I’m sureyourmother doesn’t hate you.” Baya is gorgeous, and she’s got a body for miles. It’s no wonder my friend Bryson fell so hard for her. I’m glad they’re happy—hell, I’m glad someone’s happy.
“Oh, you don’t know my mother,” I’m quick to correct. “And, for the record”—I turn to Roxy—“you don’t knowyourmother either. Hate is just the tip of the iceberg of what that woman feels for me.” I look to Baya. “True story. She hates me and loves Meg Collins.” Meg comes from money, was gently reared, and annoyingly insisted on calling my ex-boyfriend’s mother,mom,long before we were ever over. “Face it, Rox, both your mother and Meg are thrilled that Ryder and I called it quits.”
“Ryder didn’t call anything quits—you did.” Roxy tugs at my corset until my boobs pop up, creating a dramatic décolleté that Ryder only wishes he could bury his face in. The dress I’m wearing has the girls on a perch, ready and willing to jump off the ledge at a moment’s notice. The gown in general is a period piece, a dirty blue brocade with a full bell skirt and tight waist, low cut to the nipple line, and I must say I look every part the wench. Actually I’m Madame Thenardier the keeper of the inn. Whitney Briggs is putting onLes Misfor their Winter Spectacular, so here we are at the country club trying to raise funds for the department.
“I don’t care who called it quits. The important thing is that it’s over.” I untie my bustle only to retie it six times tighter than before. “To hell with breathing, I have far more important things to do like bring you-know-who to his drop-dead gorgeous knees for everything he put me through last year.”
“Hey, relax. Nobody is out to get you,” Baya says it sweetly while combing the hair away from my face. “Can I ask what happened with you and—” She ticks her head toward the crowd. I have a very strict do-not-use-the-asshole’s-name-in-my-presence rule, and if you should feel the need, kindly replace his moniker with Bastard, or what he’s more formally known as, Rat Bastard.
“Nothing happened.” Roxy dares defy the circumstances that got the breakup ball rolling, thus openly rejecting my reasoning for the horrible relationship demise. “My brother still loves her.” Roxy’s eyes swell with tears. “Laney is just too stubborn to hear the truth. See this, Baya? This is what happens when someone isn’t willing to listen to a logical explanation. She just hopped to her own conclusions and, poof, a thing of beauty disappeared into thin air.”
“I’m not listening.” I pick up my dress and stalk off toward Bing Chase, my partner inLes Miscrime who happens to play the part of my perverted husband.
“You need a hit?” He holds out a bottle of Seagram’s 7, and I’m quick to snatch it from him. I put my lips to the tip and effectively pour the brown brew down my throat, easy as drinking fire.
“Slow down, girl.” He tries to muscle it away from me, but I continue to chug until my insides threaten to detonate like a nuclear warhead.
The choir finishes up a sassy version ofJingle Bells,and the master of ceremonies takes his place at the podium once again.
“Ladies and gentlemen of this fine establishment,” he rambles it out with all of the theatrics of a circus conductor. “Whitney Briggs dramatic arts and dance department is proud to present a snippet of the Winter Spectacular’s prized presentation,Les Miserables. Feast your eyes on the fine cast as ten title characters are auctioned off as a part of our evening with the stars. Open your wallets and your hearts. All proceeds go directly to the department. And, now, please put your hands together as we present,Master of the House.”
The crowd breaks out into a mild applause, and I refuse to pan the front row. I refuse to let Ryder Capwell catch me glancing in his direction—for him to see even one hint of desperation in my eyes. God forbid I lock eyes with Meg or his mother for that matter—my ultra-pointy stilettos might go flying. And believe you me these are some serious weapons of mass destruction, or at least worthy of a good stabbing. They’re the killing-cockroaches-in-the-corner variety, but they’re cute as hell, never mind the fact they’re cutting off the circulation to my pinky toes. I swear the girl in the costume department hates me. This isn’t the first time she’s cursed me with something that’s capable of a quasi-maiming.
Bing plucks the bottle from my hands. “We’re on, kid.” The music starts up, and we saunter out with the ensemble. I try to keep my focus on Bing while he wails away his solo, but my thighs are shaking just being this close to Ryder. It’s like I can sense him in the room. My chest heaves for no good reason, my skin gets hot then cold, then sticky and clammy because, truth be told, that man still has a very real physical effect on me—also there was whiskey.
Nevertheless Ryder Capwell is a god, fit for altar worship and eternal veneration all of which I was physically and mentally prepared to do until he left me alone and naked in bed one night. He hightailed it back to his mother’s house to once again rescue the forever damsel in distress, Maniacal Meg.
Anyway, he apologized until his balls were blue in the face and asked what he could do to make it better—that he would do absolutely anything, so I asked the only logical thing I could think of. I told him to stay the hell away from me. I meant it at the time, but damn it all to hell if I haven’t hated myself just a little this past year for invoking such a harsh punishment. And, Ryder being the moral upstanding, albeit Rat Bastard, kind of a guy he is, upheld his end of the Laney embargo, and we haven’t been face-to-face in twelve solid months. I mean, he tried, but I was quick to instate Newton’s third law ofe-motion: for every one of his actions, I enlisted an opposite and equalreaction—ready and willing to deflect his efforts. For instance—he called, I ignored. He texted, I blocked. He emailed, I unopened.
The tragedy of it all is that I used to believe in love. I used believe in Ryder and me. I thought we would last. I thought we had forever in our grasp, but we were just a lie. He couldn’t hold me up over the other women in his life. Instead, I was sloshing around the bottom somewhere beneath his mother and Meg, both of whom took turns urinating on me.
Bing stomps over and gives a stern look. It’s only then I realize the music is recuing itself on a loop as the band patiently waits for me to jump into the number.
“Crap,” I hiss, scuttling further onto the stage, and the audience chortles along with the cast—although the cast chortling happens to be scripted.
I belt out my number, slow, seductive, and I don’t squirm like I usually do during rehearsals when Bing pushes Guy Richards’ face between my boobs. This time I sort of jump into him, increasing his plunge into my cleavage, and I can actually feel him breathing right over my skin. I bend my neck back and let out a breathy sigh as if I’m enjoying the shit out of it because secretly I want Ryder to die a thousand slow deaths knowing his face will never again venture to be where Guy Richards’ lucky nostrils have landed.
I make the mistake of glancing down at his mother—Rue. There she is with her freshly died auburn hair, the veins in her neck distending as she forces a smile on those dry orange lips.
Last winter, Ryder’s mother called me a common street whore. Yes, she went there. The insult came after I sent him a private picture of me changing for a play that I was starring in,Annie. I thought it was hilarious the way I looked with my cupie-doll makeup and curly red wig with nothing else on but my pink lace bra and matching thong, so I took a selfie and shot him one. Only Ryder was at his parent’s house, and his mother somehow got ahold of my need for redheaded self-expression of the Victoria Secret variety, and, well, the wordwhorebubbled from her lips. Of course, Ryder didn’t relay the message, Meg did, but when I had the big confrontation last Christmas Eve, Ruthless Rue, a.k.a. the woman I myself shall never call “mom,” didn’t bother to deny it. Instead she backed it up with a potshot at my own mother that went something like,the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Anyway, Rue Capwell is the cruelest most judgmental person on the planet, and I have no problem saying that, considering she’s my best friend’s mother because it just so happens to be a solid fact. To deny it would be akin to saying that the earth is flat, or that a shoe sale at Macy’s is a thing to be ignored.
Meg is no angel either. When I think of the night it all came crashing down for Ryder and me, it’s her naked body that burns into my mind. I’d rather stick my face in a hot skillet than relive any part of it. There are a lot of words to describe a person like Meg, and they’re all way too nice for her—a canine of a certain gender, a delicate part of the female anatomy. But I’m not going there. I couldn’t hate her more if I tried.
In the end, his mother and Meg wore me down. I would never be enough for his mother, and Meg would never quit. The saddest part of the equation was that Ryder never seemed to believe me when it came to his mother’s special brand of cruelty. He was always ready with an excuse, too quick to overlook her grievances. His mother and Meg created an ocean of hurt, and time after time Ryder set me down in it, surrendering me to the wind like a cheap paper boat.
I finish up the solo portion of my number, and the ensemble joins in as we round out the scene together. God—I hate when my attention is spliced in two while I’m trying to perform. It’s a serious mindfuck because on one hand I’m flaunting my cleavage trying to convey this clever dialogue through song while I’m really off somewhere in my brain having hot make-up sex and simultaneously strangling my ex.
Then, without warning, my eyes commit the biggest grievance of all. I glance down, and the unthinkable happens—our eyes lock, and I freeze solid.
Ryder Capwell still very much has me in more ways than one, whether I like it or not.
His ebony-colored hair is combed back in lustrous waves, a little longer than it was last year. His navy eyes sear right through to my soul while my panties spontaneously combust beneath my tattered gown. Swear to God, smoke is going to plume from under my skirt at any moment, and there aren’t enough fire extinguishers in the world to douse these flames. My nipples inch out of my costume and ache to look at him themselves while my stomach ignites in a ball of fire just imagining the things he can do to me with those oversized hands, that long, serpentine tongue, his soft-as-air lips. Ryder looks impeccable tonight in his inky black suit, his silver tie—luscious enough to bind my wrists with. Every part of me screams for him to touch me, and all the while our gaze is immovable as concrete.
