“Will you just shut up,” I protest, hiding my flushed face.
“Andy and Lex, sitting in a tree,” she starts to sing with a shit-eating grin. “K-I-S-S-I—Oof.”
The pillow I throw right in her face stops her, but it’s quickly returned with the same strength, but I whack it mid-air to protect the cat. It’s ridiculous how our personalities regress to our dumb teenage selves when we’re together.
Kate stays silent for a moment, studying my face carefully. Before I can figure out what she’s onto, her face lights up. “Oh, my God… You’re in love with him!”
It isn’t a question, so I don’t answer. “Have you told him yet?”
I shake my head, wondering if I should mention I was very close to doing it a few times. But I didn’t in case he doesn’t love me back, or if it scares him, or if he’ll remind me he isn’t the relationship type…
“Are you planning on telling him at some point?” Kate carefully tries. I nod, and she smiles. “When?”
“When I’m sure.”
“Of what?”
“That he feels the same way.”
“Aw, Deedee… If I were him, I’d be on the verge of proposing by now.”
“But you love me for sure, so you don’t count. Can we get back on track, though? We need to handle your problem, K.”
At the mention of the Stefano debacle, we both fall silent for a moment. Only the regular purring of Mr. Fluffybutt on my lap continues as I distractedly pet him.
“I still can’t believe that fucking prick filmed you.”
“Me neither. It looks like he taped us from the bookshelf in his room. I feel so violated, Deedee. The worst part is, if he had asked, I might have agreed to do it. Can you imagine? At least I can’t hate myself for allowing him to film us. All I can do is hate myself for dating him in the first place.”
“We should have seen it coming. Only someone mentally imbalanced would wear that much gel in their hair,” I say. She always knew I hated him since I was pretty vocal about it in the past. But this isn’t an I-told-you-so moment, so I don’t remind her.
She turns herself into a tight ball as she always does when stressed, with her knees against her chest and arms around her folded legs. “He did wear too much gel, didn’t he?”
“Absolutely. The first time I saw him, I remember thinking you could put a dictionary on his head, and nothing would move.”
“One of those big ones, with thick pages and hardcovers.” We laugh together softly, and silence slowly settles in the room again. She lays her temple on her knee. “Andy, what am I going to do?” she asks, despair making her voice crack.
“We’ll find a way. We’ll brainstorm together and get the video back, all the versions of it, and also make him pay for what he did to you.”
“He knows the law in and out, Dee. I don’t want you to be in danger because of me.”
“I won’t. You know the law, too. And we’re smart as fuck. We can figure something out. You already thought about going to the cops, I imagine?”
“I’ve seen how they treat women who come in with a broken arm and a black eye. I don’t even want to imagine how little they will care about my case. And Stefano said he’d leak it if I do.”
Even a few minutes of it on the internet could damage Kate’s reputation and social life. It’s unfair how women get so hurt by leaked sex tapes, but the fucking pigs who spread them in the first place usually come out of it unscathed.
“My biggest worry is that he saved it somewhere, and even if he deletes something in front of us, he can still have it elsewhere and use it at some point,” I explain. I have no way of knowing how many copies of it exist. For all we know, he can even have burned it on a DVD and hidden it in a book.
“Maybe we could—” Kate starts as my phone rings in my pocket.
“Sorry,” I grimace, struggling to reach for it because of the obese cat on my lap.
Mr. Fluffybutt jumps out of my lap anyway, and my eyebrows come together when I see my mom’s face on the screen. I take the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Hola, mamá, what’s up?”
“Andrea Grace Walker!¿Qué hice para merecer una hija como tú?” she yells in my ear.What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?
