“I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t give him my number,” Taylor remarked, wrapping her arms around her bended knees. “It was a burner phone. A friend suggested I use one after this guy she met on a dating site started stalking her.”
“Shit, that’s scary,” London said. She plopped onto the sofa next to Samiah, her fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. Her crinkly curls were mashed on one side. “This place is gorgeous, by the way. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that last night.”
“We were all too busy bitching about that asshole,” Samiah replied. “But thanks.”
A foggy veil obscured her recollection of the past twelve hours, but she remembered inviting London and Taylor back to her place after deciding she wasn’t up to going to the blues club. She’d probably never step foot in there now that it was linked to Craig and his lying ways.
Samiah glanced to the right and noticed the empty vodka bottle, stray lime wedges, and copper tumblers on the glass end table, remnants of the Moscow Mules she’d made last night.
“Is anyone up for breakfast?” she asked. “I can order something.”
London lifted her cup. “This is my normal breakfast.”
“Aren’t you a doctor?” Taylor tsked. “You should know better. You need protein to get your day off on the right foot.”
London replied with a grunt before sipping her coffee.
“What is it you do for a living again?” Samiah asked Taylor. “Sorry if you mentioned it last night. Everything is a bit fuzzy.”
“Personal trainer and nutrition expert,” Taylor answered. She was way too bubbly now that she was fully awake. Samiah would have found it endearing if her head wasn’t pounding so much. “Which means that I should know better than to pollute my body with the half liter of vodka I consumed last night.”
“It was warranted.” London settled back on the sofa, crossing one long, slim leg over the other. “If you can’t get drunk after finding out your boyfriend has been cheating on you with who knows how many other women, when can you get drunk?” She turned to Samiah. “By the way, I figured out this morning that you were the first to date him, at least among the three of us. You went out with him on the Friday of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and my first date with him was that Sunday night.”
“He told me he had to go to Dallas that weekend. Things were justsooobusy at his job that he couldn’t take the holiday off.” Samiah snorted out a humorless laugh. “I swear I thought I was smarter than this.”
“Hey, I’m no dummy, and he fooled the hell out of me too.” London shrugged. “He ran a good game. I’m just happy I never slept with him.”
“I didn’t either!” Samiah said. “It’s as if our instincts knew better.”
They high-fived each other.
Taylor pouted. “I’m kinda bummed I found out he was a dog before I got the chance to sleep with him.”
“What?” Samiah and London’s simultaneous screeches echoed off the condo’s high ceilings.
“What?” she asked with an incredulous shrug. “It’s been a minute, okay? I swear I saw cobwebs the last time I looked down there.”
Samiah burst out laughing then regretted it. The hammering that had all but subsided returned to her skull with a vengeance. She drew her feet up on the sofa and tucked them underneath her.
“You can do better than Craig Walters’s lying ass,” she told Taylor.
“I thought his name was Craig Johnson?” London said.
“He told me his name was Craig Milton,” Taylor said. “And if I could do better, I would have been out with better last night. I don’t know about you, but this dating shit has been brutal for me since I moved to Austin.”
Samiah was still reeling from the revelation that Craig’s cheating behind had given them all different last names. She’d looked him up on social media. Everything had seemed legit. She wondered if he’d set up profiles for all his different names. How much time and energy had that leech put into this little scheme of his?
“I hear you on the dating front,” Samiah said. “Craig was the first guy in six months who’d made it past a second date.”
“Look, I’m from this area and it’s been brutal for me too,” London added. “I guess that’s how he was able to dupe the three of us. There’s slim pickings out there.” She drained her coffee mug and set it on the sofa table. “And now I have to find someone else to take to my damn class reunion. Shit.”
The three of them released commiserating groans.
“My ten-year reunion was a nightmare,” Samiah said.
“I used my move to Austin as an excuse to skip mine,” Taylor said.
“Well, this makes fifteen years for me, and there is no skipping it. That’s what I get for being class president.”
