“How about not having sex with other men?” That’d be a good start.
She huffed out a sound of irritation. “Those were just flings. Quinn’s the real deal. No one’s ever been as good to me as he is. I really do want to marry him. But I like sex. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Oh my God, Cora. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Marriage means monogamy. And you...you just lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I turned away and left her in Jenny’s Crab Shack too, with Quinn’s engagement ring a little buttery but tucked safely in my pocket.
I cried a little bit, wandered around town a lot, refused to return to my apartment where Cora was. About an hour after everything fell apart, Caroline called, frantic.
“Oren just showed up here with a black eye and really upset, mumbling something to Noel about how Quinn will never forgive him for what he did. What the heck happened?”
“I don’t…I don’t know. I’m not sure. Cora cheated on Quinn, and they broke up.”
“What? Cora cheated—Wait. Oren wouldn’t possibly be stupid enough to...not with Cora? Would he?”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. “No, the texts I read weren’t from him. She definitely cheated with someone else.” Or maybe a couple someone elses from the sounds of it.
“That lying fucking whore. I mean...I’m sorry. I know she’s your—”
“She is not my friend,” I snapped. “Not right now. She lied to me too. I had no idea.” I’d helped Quinn buy her a ring. I’d...Quinn probably thought I knew about this. He probably thought I’d purposely led him on a merry goose chase. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
I hung up on Caroline and raced toward Quinn’s apartment.
When I stormed through the front door of my apartment, Ten was slouched on the sofa, eating from a bag of potato chips and drinking a beer as he watched television.
I slammed the door behind me and began to pace the front room.
“I’m sensing turmoil,” he said mildly.
I picked up one of his textbooks off the coffee table and heaved it as hard as I could against the wall.
“And I’m sensing it has something to do with...classwork?”
I sent him a glare. “Cora cheated on me.”
Ten dropped his beer. “Shit, man.” He popped to his feet. “So, it’s true then?”
I stopped pacing. “What? Wait, you knew about this?”
“What? No! Fuck, no. I’ve just heard—I mean, come on, man. She was a total slut before you hooked up with her, but—”
“She was what?” I marched toward him. He backed up a step.
“Dude, we called her Cora the Whora. How did you never know that? Before you two hooked up, she’d had just about every guy on the team.”
He must’ve realized that was the very worst thing he could’ve possibly said because his eyes widened a split second before I grabbed his shirt and hauled him close until we were nearly nose-to-nose. “Really? Did she have you?”
Ten didn’t answer, but his face paled.
I let go of him and stepped back. “Oh God. She did.”
“Ham. Man.” He inched toward me, reaching out, but I slapped his hand away. “It was only one time, before you ever met her, before you even knew she existed.” When I just stared at him, he closed his eyes and winced. “Okay. And then one time after.”
“After...” I repeated slowly. “After what? After I met her, you mean?” I’d slept with her the very first night I’d met her.
Ten held up his hands in surrender, his eyes pleading. “I didn’t know you were going to start dating her. I swear to God. You’d just lost your virginity to the girl. I thought you’d call it good and move on to other pastures. She’s a one-time kind of slut, not someone you date. And she came on to me a couple nights after you guys first hooked up, so I thought, why the hell not? We were both unattached—or so I thought—and I was horny. When I heard the next day that you’d asked her out again, I cornered her and demanded to know why the fuck she’d done that to me. But she said she didn’t know you were going to call her again.”
I growled. “I didn’t call her again. I asked her out on an official date the morning after the very first night we met. And she said yes.”
Ten winced. “Then she lied to me. I promise you, Quinn, I would never betray you like that. I had no idea you were still interested in her after your first time.”
I couldn’t listen to any more. So I punched him.
In the face.
He wasn’t expecting it and shouted out his surprise before catching his jaw in his hands and cursing up a storm.
As he danced around the room to alleviate the pain, I pointed toward the door. “Get out of my apartment.”
Breathing hard, Ten straightened. He opened his mouth, but I shook my head, finished listening to him. “Just go.”