“You had it coming, asswipe!”
“She’s my ex-girlfriend!” Stanley garbles, holding out an extended arm to try to protect himself from my right arm swinging again. It isn’t beyond me, so maybe he’s not so dumb after all.
It takes me a second to understand what the fuck he’s muttering on about. I glance back at Sadie, who’s still holding her hands to her face and looking from me to fuckface, back to me again. Her mouth opens to say something, then closes again. “What?” I grit at Stanley, I don’t even care if I’m bellowing or not, or who the hell is watching. I know for a fact the sheriff ain’t gonna arrest me for assaulting my ex-best friend in a bar full of people.
“Sadie, tell him!” Stanley pleads, pointing at her, and if he tries to get any closer to her again, I’ll break his fingers one by one. I don’t care.
“Don’t point at her!” I growl. “In fact, don’t even look at her!”
“Wait, it’s true.” I hear Sadie’s voice above the noise in the bar, and over my own racing thoughts what he’s even doing here. “Duncan Stanley,” she says. “He is my ex.”
My head whips back to him again, none of us guys ever called him Duncan… he always went by his last name, a football tradition that just carried on after high school. “What in the ever living fu–” The temperature in here feels nuclear, and I’ve never felt so close to blowing a gasket before.
This lying, cheating piece of shit is Sadie’s ex from New York? “Sade, please tell me this isn’t true, baby,” I say between gritted teeth. And I know it is true, because she just told me, so I may just thump him again because I can. How in the hell… he’s also the asshole who Hilary cheated on me with… my hand balls into a fist again by my side. It’s only the way Sadie presses her beautiful lips together, and takes a deep breath, that distracts me for a moment.
I don’t want to upset her, I just want to comprehend what’s going on, and throw this asshole out of here.
“Baby?!” Stanley, Duncan, whatever the fuck he wants to call himself, says. “Wait, are you two–?” He points between us with the hand not covered in blood from his nose.
“Shut the fuck up,” I grit. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Sadie lets out another deep breath and steps next to me, placing her soft, delicate hand on my arm. “That’s the lying, cheating scumbag who had all the dating app profiles,” she confirms. “Duncan. Funny, he didn’t go by Stanley in New York.”
“Just scumbag,” I mutter, turning my attention back to him. “The same one who cheated with my ex, Hilary.“
I clarify that part just so she’s up to speed. The look of horrified recognition on her face tells me she is. He must’ve run off to New York after he got chased out of town and somehow ended up with my sweet, adorable Sadie.
I turn back to him. “As if you doing what you did to me wasn’t bad enough, you then go on to cheat on Sadie, repeatedly I might add, then continue to barrage her with messages and emails? And because she doesn’t want anything to do with your lying ass, somehow you think showing up here unannounced to win her back is a good idea?”
“I–I–” He pauses, taking a step further away. Maybe my still clenched fist might have something to do with that. “I just wanted to tell her I was sorry, and that I didn’t mean it. I love her!”
That’s when I see red again and draw my arm back, hopefully I’ll knock him out this time. But before I can, someone’s hand on my shoulder stops me. Instinctively, I turn my head and see George. My non-lying and cheating best friend. He’s more of a man than Stanley will ever be.
“Everything okay?” George asks, giving me a chin lift and nodding over to Sadie’s bleeding ex in front of us. He doesn’teven bother regarding Stanley with anything but a look of disgust. He drove him out of town once before, I’m sure he’ll happily do it again.
“Everything is just fine,” I say. “The asshole here was just leaving.”
Stanley looks up at George, still in uniform, and they both share a moment without words, luckily for him, he shuts his trap before it can get him in any more trouble.
“Any more out of you and I’ll have you thrown in jail for disturbing the peace, harassment and whatever else I can think of. Then I’ll have you kicked out of this town quicker than your feet can touch the ground,exactlylike the last time, only harder,” George tells him, giving me a squeeze on the shoulder.
Sadie is still standing here in shock on the other side of me. Being faced with her ex like this has got to be confronting. How fucking dare he.
“Me!” he screeches, thrusting his pointer finger at me again. “Zane is the one who punched me, in fact, I think my nose is broken!”
“You better turn that fucking finger around,” I mutter. “Before I rearrange your entire face for good this time.”
It’s then Sadie steps forward. “You better do what they say and get out of here,” she murmurs, with a hand on her hip and a fire to her tone that I’ve never heard her use before. She’s pissed. “The time for talking is over. You’re a cheat and a liar. I should never have trusted you! Now, leave me alone once and for all.”
“I just wanted to apologize, Kelto and I… that was a huge mistake.”
“Kelto?” Sadie gasps, her hand slapping over her mouth.
Holy fucking shit.
I know all about her lying ex-roommate who stole from her, but obviously this is the first time she’s hearing Kelto was fucking him. What in the actual hell? I take another step towardhim, but Sadie moves quicker than I do, grabbing her glass from where she placed it and throwing the entire contents of her pink drink in his face. A hard slap closely follows, I stare at her in wonder as Stanley stares at her in complete and utter shock while her drink rolls off him. “My roommate, wow, when you go behind people’s backs you really go all out.”
“I thought she told you…”
