Empty Net by Toni Aleo
Chapter 1
It figured that Audrey Parker would get dumped the day of her sister’s bachelorette party.
It was just her luck.
As Audrey stood outside of Wanna B’s bar with her cell phone to her ear, she couldn’t help but think how the day had started off so perfectly. She had spent the morning in bed with her boyfriend. Then she went for a day of pampering with her beautiful sister, Fallon, and all of Fallon’s friends. It was a wonderful afternoon and Audrey knew that tonight was going to be even better.
That was until the fireworks began.
Levi Moss was positively the most hardheaded, stubborn, gorgeous man Audrey had ever dated. He wasn’t much taller than her five-five frame, but that didn’t matter. He stood as if he were six feet tall, with large arms and an even larger neck. Levi wore his brown hair in a horrible buzz cut, which she didn’t care for, but his face more than made up for it. His eyes were bright green with flecks of gold. His face was sharply angled, with full lips, and she couldn’t help but smile when he did. She loved his smile, and since he only smiled at her every once in a while, it always took her breath away.
But even with his gorgeousness, he was a pain in her ass. She loved him. She did. But man, he bitched like a chick. If it wasn’t her cooking, it was her obsessive need to have everything clean. Just because he was a slob didn’t mean that she had to be. When he left stuff lying all over the place, it drove her crazy, but she loved him so much that she looked past it. She never complained and would clean up after him. Pathetic, she knew, but she loved him. Her sister and her sister’s soon-to-be husband, Lucas, had told her countless times to leave Levi, but she couldn’t lose the only man who ever really wanted her.
Looking around the outside of the bar, Audrey begged her tears to stay at bay as Levi screamed at her through the phone.
“You are probably out whoring yourself all over Broadway! It’s disgusting, but don’t worry, I won’t be here when you get home!”
Audrey rolled her eyes. “For one, I am not whoring myself all over the place, and second, weren’t you just out for Lucas’s bachelor party last night?”
“We didn’t do anything! We played hockey and drank beers while Lucas talked on the phone with Fallon all night!”
“And that’s my fault?”
“You didn’t cook dinner for me before you left and now you are out at some club, probably picking up guys,” he snapped.
Audrey pinched the bridge of her nose. “I am not picking up anyone. I am trying to enjoy my sister’s last weekend as a single woman. Everyone does this, and it doesn’t mean I’m gonna cheat.”
“I don’t care. We’re through. I’m done with you.”
Audrey shook her head as she looked up at the sky. How was he dumping her when, according to Levi, they weren’t really together, as he’d told her so many times before? The tears threatened to fall because she knew the real reason he was breaking up with her. He was messing around with someone else. Someone who apparently was better than her.
“If you leave, you aren’t coming back, Levi, so make sure she is worth it,” she said as strongly as she could.
Levi’s laughter made Audrey want to puke. “She is worth it,” he said. “She is way better than you’ll ever be, you fat whore.”
Then the line went dead.
Audrey’s hand fell to her side, her phone held loosely in it. She could have done without his exiting line, but she knew she’d brought it on herself. She should never have brought up the other girl. She had known about her for months. So why was she letting it bother her now? Levi was a wanderer, she’d known that when she started things with him. She also knew that in a couple weeks he would call her, apologizing, and she would be right back with him.