We sit on the couch in the living area, and I try to make small talk.
“Luke, talk to me. I’m your friend, remember? This is affecting you more than you’re saying. It’ll just keep bothering you until you get it all out.”
“There was another time that pictures of her surfaced. She tried to warn me ahead of time, but when I saw them, my mind went to the worst-case scenario. She accused me of doing that this time. In fact, she was adamant about that. What if she’s telling the truth? What if I just threw away the best thing I’ve ever had over a misunderstanding?”
“That explains why you’re not fully convinced about the pictures. My friend is pretty close to the entourage with them. She’s been told that Travis and Andi spend a lot of time together—alone. It doesn’t seem that there’s a misunderstanding this time, Luke,” Syndi replies.
“Yeah, that’s what’s bothering me the most,” I admit. “I prefer the misunderstanding.”
“How about I keep you busy and keep your mind off of her? We have plenty of work coming up that we need to prepare for—magazine interviews, and maybe look at booking some others,” Syndi offers.
“My social calendar seems to have opened up,” I quip. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make Valentine’s plans with her after all. I’d forever associate that day with everything that’s happened in the last few hours.”
“We’ll just have to find something else to take your mind off of it,” she suggests.
“Like maybe going to that frou-frou spa you talked about?”
Syndi bursts out laughing. “Frou-frou spa? No, honey, there’s nothing frou-frou about that place. But, it’s really too bad those plans fell through and they couldn’t get a spot for two guys at such late notice. There was only one couple’s spot left open. You and I should have taken it.”
“Just as well. I don’t need a spa. I need a punching bag, a big dummy to pummel, and a kick-ass workout to take my frustrations out on anyway.”
“There are other ways to constructively work through frustrations, Luke.”
“No other way feels as good as repeatedly punching the shit out of something.”
“Then you haven’t found the best method yet,” she says with a sly smile.
A saying my best friend from high school used frequently pops into my head.Slide into a new one to get over the last one.
Bad idea, Luke. Bad idea.
Syndi and I talk a little while longer, she flirts a little more and makes her interest known, but I casually ignore it. I just split with my fiancée, the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Wanted. The woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Forgetting Andi by having sex with Syndi won’t work. Andi’s not the type of girl any man just gets over, no matter how many stand-ins he finds. When Syndi finally leaves my room and I’m alone, I decide to go for a run to work off some of these negative feelings. With my hand on the doorknob, just as I’m about to walk out the door, my cell phone starts ringing.
I consider letting it roll to voice mail but just thinking it could be Andi calling me back has me running to the phone. As I snatch it up off the end table, I see Brandon’s name flash across the screen. It’s late here in Vegas, so I know it’s really late in Atlanta.
“Hey bro, what’s up?” I say as a greeting.
“Oh, not much. You know, just got the late-night phone call from a very upset little lady. Thought I’d call my brother and see what the hell is going on,” Brandon says dryly.
Sighing, I realize I’m not going to make it out for that run anytime soon. “She called you?”
“Yes, she called me,” Brandon says.
“Did she put you up to calling me?”
Brandon laughs. “Luke, have you ever met Andi? She doesn’t need me to call you in her place. In fact, she specifically said she didn’t want me to talk to you for her. You’re my brother, and I know you have to be as upset as she is right now. So I’m calling to check on you.”
Taking a seat on the couch, I lean back and tell Brandon everything that has happened. Syndi bringing the pictures by, seeing them with my own eyes, and all the inside information her source is passing on to us.
“Do you think Syndi is playing you, Luke? That still just doesn’t sound like the Andi we know,” Brandon says, sadness lacing his tone.
“I thought about that, bro. I really did. But when I looked through one picture after another of Andi and Travis, I knew I was grasping at straws by blaming Syndi. One lingering doubt I still can’t shake is why Andi tried to convince me that I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was seeing if she’s been trying to find a way to break it off with me.
“Why would she do that? She’s not the vindictive type. She wouldn’t want to hurt me or embarrass me.”
“Why didn’t you ask her that, Luke?” Brandon asks pointedly.
