At this, Alexandra raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, but how exactly do you know my husband? What’s this about?”
At this point, a crowd had gathered, and Elliot and Zelda were racing over from inside the house. Erik took a step forward, directly into Julian’s face, and leaned over to whisper in his ear.
“You don’t deserve to even look at her, you cheating piece of shit.” It was so quiet, the only people who could hear the scathing remark were Cierra and Julian himself.
Erik began to turn around, satisfied, when Julian grabbed his shoulder. Red in the face and looking like a dog backed into a corner, he swung at Erik in full force, but Erik ducked, sending Julian crashing to the ground. Before Erik could do anything else, Elliot and another guest had held him back and started leading him back to the house.
“Erik, what the fuck are you doing?!” Zelda yelled.
Alexandra, standing in bewilderment, looked at Cierra, and then at Julian. There was a disappointment in her eyes that saideverything in one glance; there was no doubt she’d made this exact face before. She began walking toward the shoreline, and Julian followed.
“Babe, honey, I’ve got no idea what that drunk idiot was talking about . . .” Julian said while trailing after her. But the look of knowing disgust on Alexandra’s face revealed she didn’t believe his words, either.
“What happened?!” Zelda asked Cierra. Cierra, open-mouthed, shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
Where to even begin.
Julian left later that evening. After a heated exchange between him and his wife by the beach, only decipherable by wild hand gestures as the breaking waves blocked out any sound, he must have lost the battle, at least for that night. Alexandra, no doubt humiliated by the whole situation, left early in the morning to fly back to New York alone.
Breakfast was understandably strange. Everyone gathered in corners of the house, speaking in hushed tones and saying little when sitting down for the last meal. Zelda had purple bags under her eyes but was nonetheless in full damage control mode. She staged an emergency meeting with Sincha’s leadership to connect on how they were going to proceed.
The flight home was quiet, until Mia nudged Cierra and tried to show her something on her phone. Cierra wasn’t in the mood for any funny videos, but Mia was insistent.
“I think you’re gonna want to see this.”
There are moments in life when things are so shitty, so unbelievably clusterfucked that you think,surely — there is no way the universe could make this situation any worse.And after the previous evening, that’s exactly what Cierra had thought. But she was wrong — things could always get worse.
Apparently, one of the guests had filmed the last half of the fight, and the most incriminating. Cierra was trending. The video already had 300k views, and the TikTok community had already titled the eventMessy Cheffy; the comments and hot takes were piling in.
Luckily, Cierra’s nerves were shot just enough not to panic. It would have to wait until the next day. Right now, all she could focus on was one thing at a time. She hadn’t spoken with Zelda all morning and could be black-listed already for all she knew.
“Thanks for letting me know,” is all she could say before zoning out.
When they landed, Erik walked over to Cierra on the tarmac. “Hey, can we talk? Maybe I could drive you home?”
“Yeah, of course.” She smiled, but he looked sad. Her shoulders dropped as they made their way to his truck.
“Not too many trucks in the city,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah.”
She connected to his Bluetooth and selected her favorite old-school playlist. For the first time since they’d landed, he smirked.
“That was, um . . . insane,” she said. “Why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know. A little drunk. Angry, I guess.”
Erik kept driving, eyes focused on the road, but both his hands were gripping the wheel like if he let up for one moment, they might skid off the highway.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t right of me. But I talked with Zelda — she’s pissed at me, but nothing’s going to affect your last check. I can at least guarantee that.”
“Yeah, I know — she gave it to me in North Carolina, actually.” But in this moment, job security, shockingly, wasn’tthe most pressing thing on her mind. “I really had no idea he was married.”
“I know.”
“Even before we left, things were going south again . . . there were so many signs. God, you must think I’m such an idiot.”
He looked briefly to his right and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Just for a moment. “No, not that.”
