“Here, drink this,” Paige orders as she holds a shot glass full of amber liquid in front of me.
Without taking my eyes off Hussy the Home Wrecker, I grab the glass and down the shot, letting the fiery burn make its way down my throat and into my stomach. Handing the glass back to Paige, I demand another one and she puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles for the bartender.
“Someone needs to give that woman a cheeseburger. She looks like she hasn’t had a good, solid meal since birth,” Lorelei states as she gets up off her bar stool and links her arm through mine.
“She needs to be waterboarded with pasta and potatoes,” Paige agrees as she hands me another shot.
This one doesn’t burn as it goes down and I’m starting to feel a little better about the fact that I’m in a bar with my ex-husband’s mistress a few feet away and she looks like a porn star.
“It’s okay. I’m fine. Totally fine. No big deal,” I mutter to myself as another shot is placed into my hand.
“I think that’s enough shots,” Lorelei tells Paige as some of the alcohol misses my mouth when I tip the glass back and it dribbles down my chin.
“A little tequila is good for the soul,” Paige replies as she pulls a tissue out of her purse and wipes my chin.
The alcohol is starting to kick in and the liquid courage is flowing through my veins. Who cares if she looks like Pamela Anderson and is half my age? Who cares if she can put both her feet behind her head and is so skinny that when she turns sideways she disappears? Not me. I could kick her ass with no arms or legs. I could kick her ass with LORELEI’s arms and legs. I could kick her ass with my newly highlighted hair while swinging Lorelei’s arms and legs over my head.
I think I’m drunk.
“Maybe you should take her gun away from her,” I hear Lorelei mutter right next to me.
Just when I think my courage is off the charts, Harlot Barbie turns in my direction and we make eye contact. It could be the jukebox in the corner of the bar messing with me, or it could be the tequila, but I’m pretty sure I just heard the whistling tune of the gun-duel music that plays in old westerns.
The crowd parts like the Red Sea as she smiles and starts walking in my direction. Barbie’s sidekicks, Skipper and Stacie, follow closely behind her until she stops a foot away from me and they both bump into her back, sending them all stumbling forward in a mess of blonde hair and fake boobs.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Paige mutters next to me.
“Kennedy! It’s so good to see you! These are my friends, Misty, with a y and Tiffanie with an ie,” Chloe says brightly.
“My IQ just dropped a hundred points,” Lorelei whispers into my ear.
Suddenly, standing this close to the woman who stole my husband, I don’t feel so good about myself. I can actually feel the tequila churning in my stomach and my awesome hair that Paige styled wilting into an ugly mess.
“How have you been? I feel like we haven’t talked in ages,” Chloe says with a pout of her perfect collagen-injected, bright pink lips.
Is this bitch serious? She’s acting like we’re old friends and not like I walked into my home to find her deep-throating my husband on my couch. MY couch. The brown leather piece of perfection I got on sale before I left for Afghanistan. I had to bleach the couch two days later. And then it was completely ruined. I miss that couch.
I can’t even find my voice to tell her off. I’ve dreamed of this moment for months: coming face-to-face with my archnemesis in a bar with my friends, full of booze and looking awesome, and telling her exactly what I think of her while pummeling her face into a pile of wet dog food.
Instead, I feel like a pile of wet dog food. Wet dog food covered in shit and stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe. I feel inadequate. I never feel inadequate. I never care what people think of me, but right now I feel sorry for myself and I want to go off into the corner and cry into an entire bottle of tequila.
Before I can cede my title of awesomeness to the better woman, I feel warm hands grab onto my hips and then slide around to my front, pulling me back against a rock-hard chest. I see Chloe, Misty, and Tiffanie’s eyes widen and their mouths drop open as fingers graze my bare shoulder and push my hair to the side before soft lips are pressed to my neck.
“Hello, gorgeous. Sorry I’m late. Traffic was a bitch.”