Did she talk about me?
I cringed at my own message. It sounded pathetic, but also… did I really want to know? Was there any answer that would make me feel better? Because I was pretty sure whatever response he had was going to make me feel exponentially worse.
He started and stopped typing several times before a response came through.
She was really weird about talking about exes. Mine or hers.
I furrowed my brow at the screen. Huh? She hadn’t liked me maintaining friendships with the ones I was on good terms with, but weird about discussing exes at all? Since when?
Oh. Since she was cheating on one of those “exes.”
Maybe that’s just as well. I’m not sure I’d want to know what she said about me, now that I think about it.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe anything she said about anyone. Not anymore. So if she had talked about you… (shrugging emoji)
I guess there’s that. I don’t know why I asked.
Eh. I’d probably wonder too. But no she always shut down conversations about exes.
At least she wasn’t talking shit about me.
No. Definitely not. She didn’t like mentioning the threesome, either.
Oh, really?
Yeah. At the time I just chalked it up to not wanting to mention her ex. And because she insisted that night was the reason you two broke up. Now… well.
I had to think about that for a minute or so. Selena had loved talking about the threesome. It had always gotten her seriously hot. Though neither of us had ever made any noise about having another one with Jesse or anyone else, it made for some great dirty talk.
Which now made me feel absolutely disgusting, because I’d basically been turning her on by talking about the man she was screwing on the side. No wonder she?—
I sat straighter.
No wonder she’d never liked me talking about the things Jesse and I had done to each other, only what we’d done to her. She’d wanted the threesome because she’d thought it would be sexy as hell to see two men as into each other as we were into her. Afterward, though, she only wanted to hear about the things we’d done to her. Especially the thingshe’ddone to her.
I swore into the silence. As if I hadn’t already walked away from that night feeling a little less than adequate below the belt.
“It was funonetime,”she’d assured me after I’d mentioned how much Jesse was packing compared to me.“Like a novelty thing. But you’re not lacking anywhere, baby. Trust me.”
Yeah. About that.
I took another swig of water to rinse the sudden bitterness out of my mouth. Then I picked up the phone again and wrote out another text.
I still can’t believe I never caught on. Like there should’ve been some red flags somewhere.
Me too, man.
Neither of us wrote anything for a long moment. There was so much I wanted to know, but now that I had him ready and waiting to answer those questions, maybe Ididn’twant to know. I was still trying to comprehend that this was even real. Maybe getting into the nitty gritty would be… counterproductive.
I think if I keep asking questions tonight, I won’t sleep at all.
Plenty of time to ask after you move.
After I moved. To his place. Fuck, that’s right, I was moving in with Jesse until I got on my feet. And as much as I appreciated his offer—shit, was that really a good idea?
Did I have any other options, at least in the very short term?
Still, I wrote back,
