“Of course it matters to me! I thought this meant something to you, I thought we were—”
“What?” I demand. “What were we to you? If you were really with me for me, because you actually liked me, not for the stupid contest, then losing the bounty shouldn’t matter to you!”
“I never gave a fuck about the bounty!” Jake’s voice rises. “What I care about is the fact that you slept with someone else!”
“It didn’t mean anything!” I fire back. “You of all people should understand that! It was just sex!”
“Just sex?” Jake says incredulously. “Is that what you think I’m all about? Is that all you think this was?”
“You can drop the act. I heard you talking to Dylan just now,” I tell him, dripping with scorn. “Boasting about what you’re going to buy with your winnings.”
“Then you didn’t hear the whole conversation,” Jake says grimly. “The part where I told him to fuck off, because I didn’t give a damn about the bounty, and IF I won, if we wound up having a future together, then I would give all the money to a charity—of your choosing.”
I search his face, but he looks sincere. My heart sinks. Did I have this all wrong? Did I just fuck everything up for good?
“But you’ve made it clear that’s not going to happen,” Jake continues. “Since you don’t give a damn about me, as you made perfectly clear when you fucked someone else.”
“No!” I say, getting more confused. “I just mean that it didn’t matter! You should understand that! What matters is everything else we share!”
“I can’t believe this,” Jake mutters under his breath. I reach out for his hand, but he jerks away from my touch, and when I look up I realize that not only has the music stopped, but the room has fallen silent—except for the whispers that buzz all around. “Right now I don’t think we share anything at all,” Jake says, his voice cold and unforgiving.
And before I can say anything at all, he turns on his heel and storms off. I’m left standing frozen in the middle of the room. I can feel the eyes of the crowd on me, but I don’t care. All that matters is that it’s over. Somehow, in the space of only a few minutes, and with a few poorly chosen words, I’ve somehow managed to ruin everything I’ve ever wanted.
Jake wasn’t the enemy. It was myself, all along.
Tears sting the back of my throat, but I can’t break down. Not here. Picking up my skirt, I do the only thing I can think of: I flee. Out of the gala, down the front steps, running away from the scene of the crime. If this was a movie, the camera would be panning up now, fading into the city lights. But I can’t escape the pain so easily. The gorgeous dress doesn’t make a difference, or the pretty props. There’s no director yelling “cut,” or a script to tell me what the hell I’m going to do next.
There’s just me and my broken heart. Alone again.
Without him.
32
Jake
What do you do when the girl you’re crazy about goes and fucks someone else? For me, the answer is whiskey and bad action movies, but no matter how many times Vin Diesel drives a fast car and punches someone in the name of family, the bullet wound in my chest doesn’t go away.
Lizzie. And Douchebag Todd. I can’t believe it, except she told me herself.
Fuck.
“Swing, batta batta, swing!” Hank yells out, cupping his hand around his mouth. Our day at the ballpark is a standing date, but today I pretty much couldn’t care less. I don’t remember even feeling this bad when Isabel left me. And not even the sight of Hank yelling a blue streak at the field or flirting with the blond server who brought him a beer can snap me out of it.
Someone get The Rock to come knock me out, because I need to be unconscious right now.
“So what’s the score?” A brunette in a tight white t-shirt leans over from the seat behind us.
“You tell me,” I say, distracted.
“I wasn’t exactly paying attention,” she says, giving me a sultry look. “I was on my way to get a beer. Care to join me?”
I look at her full lips, like two plump pillows just begging to be kissed, her chest straining against her T-shirt. I start to get up, then slump back down in my chair dejectedly. All I can think about is Lizzie’s blue eyes, the way she’d stare at me over those glasses she wears that drive me out of my mind. How she’d throw her head back and laugh with every cell in her entire body . . .
“I think I’ll sit this one out,” I tell her. “Sorry.”
“Suit yourself,” she answers with a shrug, shooting me a look like I’m clinically insane before she makes her way up the risers.
“Not your type?” Hank asks, sounding surprised. “What’s with you today? You’ve been moping since the moment you picked me up.”
A vendor walks by with a tray of hot dogs and I can’t help remembering the way Lizzie devoured one with obvious relish on Santa Monica Boulevard back in LA—not to mention the way her nose wrinkled when I suggested adding ketchup.
“That girl probably doesn’t even eat hot dogs,” I mutter to no one.
Hank looks at me like I’m crazy, which I probably am, pining over some girl who’s made it clear she doesn’t want me.
“Nothing,” I sigh, draining the last of my beer. “I was just thinking about how nice it was to go out with a woman who actually eats for a change.”
“You’re referring to someone specific, I take it? Lizzie, perhaps?” he adds.
“It’s not just that she eats . . . She eats mustard on her hot dogs, Hank. Mustard. I mean, she’s totally adamant about it, and not only that, she read me the riot act about my slavish devotion to ketchup. She’s got opinions on just about everything and I love it. I mean, just eating a hot dog with her is like watching some Anthony Bourdain show.”
“Anthony who?” Hank asks.
“Forget it. It’s not important,” I say, remembering that Hank’s relationship to pop culture hit a brick wall sometime during the Nixon administration. I mean, the guy still thinks that Rosemary Clooney is the famous one instead of George—and yet he still somehow manages to know the Mets’ batting order from front to back. Go figure.
“So she likes mustard? So what? What are you getting at, Jake? That she’s spicy?” Hank laughs, slapping my knee. “The good ones always are, you know.”
“It’s not just the mustard.” I try to explain why I can’t get her out of my head. “It’s the way she could give a shit about my Aston Martin because it’s nothing compared to a Triumph—which, if you weren’t aware, is a ridiculously niche car in a classic film that practically no one has ever heard of. Except for Lizzie, because she’s like an encyclopedia for that shit.”
“So, you’re in love with her.”
I scowl. “No,” I tell him, even though it feels weird to say the word.
Hank smirks. “You know what I would do if I were you?”