Tonight, the music was great, the drinks were strong, and the closed-invitation party’s crowd was packed with the familiar faces of my fellow peers, buzzing with heedless energy…and yet I wasn’t feeling it.
Maybe because my mamma texted me earlier this evening, asking me to come home to meet her new beau—the sixteenth one in four years—and it put a huge damper on my mood. Mamma was a hopeless romantic and a serial dater. There was a void inside her chest that she longed to fill since divorcing my papà.
The last text she sent me three hours ago said:
I want to be loved, Gabby. I want us to be a big, happy family again.
Mamma’s boyfriend, who was probably closer to my age than hers, wouldn’t be the one to complete our family. She didn’t realize that, despite her divorce from Papà, we were still a unit.
But Lucia Bellafiore was stubborn and forever wearing rose-tinted glasses. She was convinced that life had only the best to offer her and was continuously on a hot pursuit for domestic bliss. It was admirable but exhausting.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Lady Luck wasn’t always on her side.
If she were, Mamma wouldn’t have fallen in love with a mob man, wouldn’t have gotten pregnant with me, and wouldn’t have ended up in her current predicament: lonely and missing her ex-husband.
At least Papà deposited a good chunk of money in our bank accounts every month to ensure we had enough food on the table, to house the nice roof over our heads, to afford my expensive schooling, and to sustain Mamma’s and my shopping habits. But otherwise, he kept a respectable distance, dropping in periodically to check on us.
And unfortunately, I could see this new disaster—Mamma and her boytoy—waiting to crash like a train wreck. Just like all the other men. She’d introduce us, we’d all get along momentarily, and then he’d discard her like trash.
Once she was patched up, we’d ride this merry-go-round all over again. I was so tired of the same mistakes, of picking up her broken pieces, and of the fact that I couldn’t break her out of this pattern and push her in the direction of the one she really wanted. My papà. Her first and only real love.
Sighing, I brought my drink to my lips to down the remainder of my spiked fruit punch before my gaze unceremoniously connected with a familiar pair of dark eyes.
My gut tightened.
The other reason why I wasn’t feeling it tonight?
Tom Prescott was here.
He was a second-year English major at Vesta University and one of the football players on the team. Up until recently,we had a short-lived, no-strings-attached, friends-with-benefits arrangement. But he ended it two days ago. In hindsight, I wasn’t heartbroken or devastated. Tom was a shitty lay and only knew how to fuck in one position: with me doing all the work on top. Not to mention, I was a commitment-phobe. My motto waslove ’em and leave ’em.
I was always the first one to end it.
So the fact that Tom beat me to it kind of bruised my ego.
To add insult to injury, he left me for none other than Morgan Huxley—one of my peers from the Women in Business Student Association—after sending me a simple text message that said,Hey, I’m done with you and I’ve found better.
Now Tom and Morgan were eating each other’s faces just metres away from me on the dance floor like it was their last supper. It was gross and disturbing.
Tom even had the audacity to wink at me mid lip-lock while Morgan shot me a smug expression like winning his attention was an accomplishment. Ew. To both.
From the minute I joined the Women in Business Student Association, Morgan’s had some sort of one-sided rivalry with me. I was uncertain why my presence vexed her when all I’d ever done was occasionally give her a smile during our weekly team meetings when I caught her staring at me or CC her in one of my work-related emails. Though maybe she disliked me because I got the position she was vying for—finance coordinator—and now she was annoyed. Regardless of the reason, Morgan was continuously rude during our team meetings. Cutting me off. Giving me the stink eye. Sighing exasperatedly when it was my turn to speak.
Dry humping my sloppy seconds at parties was also getting added to the roster.
As for Tom? I regretted giving the jackass the time of day.
If Papà were here right now, he’d hand me his loaded gun and demand I finish off Tom like the last slice of my nonna’s tiramisu. Though tempting, I wouldn’t want his blood on my conscience.
Therefore, I settled on the best course of action: removing these two idiots from my vision.
My drink was done anyway and I could use a refill, alongside some fresh air.
Cutting through the horde of bodies crowding the makeshift dance floor, I earned a couple of curious glances as I sauntered to the open bar setup in the corner of the room, their attention straying down my body in an appreciative once-over.
My dark red hair fell down my back in waves. My lashes were layered with thick coats of mascara. And my black dress had enough cutouts to bare my ribs, waist, back, and cleavage. I wasn’t shy or modest. I knew I looked good tonight.
I returned a few flirtatious smiles to the boys on the hockey team before grabbing myself another spiked fruit punch and wandering onto the empty terrace.
