“And! That’s not even whathomewreckermeans!”
“Oh.” I swiped away from the screen for a moment and Googledhomewrecker definition.
“Did you pause the camera?” she asked through the little phone speaker. “How dare you? How dare you not show me your face, you coward? What are you even doing? What is more important than you absolutely demolishing someone’s personal life with that stupid dick of yours?”
“Calm your tits, Tammy Cakes! I’m looking up the definition ofhomewreckerso I can know what the hell you’re talking about.” And there it was, at the top of the search results page:
home·wreck·er
/'hom?rek?r/
noun
derogatory•informal
a person who is blamed for the breakup of a marriage or family, especially due to having engaged in an affair with one member of a couple.
“she was accused of being a homewrecker”
“Oh.Ohhh.But...” I swiped back over to the call so Tamara could see my face. “Not that it’s any of your business who I sleep with, but just to be clear: I’ve literally never slept with a married person.”
“It is my business when it involves one of my oldest friends,” she spat back.
“Tam, what are you even talking about?”
“Payton,” she said. “You hooked up with Payton. She got engaged—”
“That’s great!” I said, and I really meant it. Being her stepping-stone was an easier pill to swallow when I’d just had the best night of my life. “Tell her I said congratulations. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“His name is Adan, and he was her boyfriend of seven years.”
I blinked once. And then again. “Is that in human years or dog years?”
“That wouldn’t make it any better!” she said. “How are we even related?”
“Well, Mom and Dad fell in love and prayed for a son, but then they had you and knew they had to try again.”
She shook her head and I could see her deciding that my dumbass response wasn’t worth entertaining. “Adan proposed after coming back from a two-month-long business trip in South Korea, and he surprised her with a huge party afterward. She cried the moment she saw all of us waiting for her there in the private room at the Jack Stack downtown—”
“God, I love that place.”
“I know, right. Did you know they can do kosher events?” she said before morphing back into her Mighty, Mighty, AngrySister Power Ranger mode. “So she’s crying and she can’t stop, so finally Adan is like, ‘Baby, what’s wrong? I thought this is what you wanted?’ And, Kallum, do you want to know what Payton Ballenger, my oldest friend, said in front of her family, her future in-laws, our parents, at least thirty-five of her closest friends, and God?”
A pit formed in my stomach. “Nope. I’m good.”
“Oh, that was a rhetorical question, because, by the way, there are these little things called consequences.”
“Just pull the trigger, already,” I told her as I grabbed my jacket and room key before making my way to my door.
“She said, ‘I slept with Kallum Lieberman.’ And then she tore that fat honking diamond off her finger and put it in the hand of the most sad, stunned man I’d ever seen in my life before running out into traffic and getting hit by a bus.”
I froze. “Oh my God. No. Is she okay?”
She shrugged. “That last part was a lie, but she did steal some random girl’s Uber.”
“Sis, I had no idea.” My voice dropped as I turned down the volume on my phone and stepped into the hallway. “I swear. This Adan guy sounds great, but I’ve never even heard of him.”
“That doesn’t fix the situation, Kallum,” she said, her voice more gentle than I expected, making her words sting even more. She didn’t sound angry anymore. She was disappointed. “This bridesmaid thing has to stop. These are people’s lives we’re talking about. Maybe you don’t ever want to settle down and maybe start a family, but this is embarrassing. Not just for me, but for Mom and Dad too. Even if they don’t say it. They shuffled outthe side door of the barbeque restaurant. Mom was crying when I called to check on them.”
