Life as We Know It (Love Not Included) (Volume 4) Read online

  How do the French say it? Le Sigh?

  His messages have been so damn sweet. All begging me to answer my phone. Asking where I’m at. Can he see me? All, I have ignored. I need time to think. His words hurt me. His mistrust felt even worse. Yeah those pictures looked bad, but accusing me of embezzlement is badder. Is badder even a word? Well, in the land of the drunken brain, it is.

  How could he think I would do that? To anyone? I thought he knew me.

  Well me, he’s known you for a whole two weeks.

  Oh, shut up, self.

  Either way. We have a connection that made me feel like I have known him forever. I just thought he felt the same way.

  “You gonna put the poor puppy dog out of his misery yet?”

  “I don’t know. I want to, but what he did was wrong.”

  “I know, honey, but I think he did it because he felt like you were betraying him. Sounds like this one has a deep commitment to his new little employee.”

  Le Sigh…again.

  I miss him too. His hands. His mouth. Those mischievous eyes that look at me as if I’m the only one in the room.

  “You sigh like a girl who is in love.”

  “Oh Jamie. I unfortunately might be completely in love with a man I just told to fuck off.”

  “Well honey, it doesn’t seem to be stopping him. Give him a chance. Talk to him. I’m sure he will explain himself,” he inhales, then begins talking slower. “I think it sounds like he has fallen just as deep with you,” he finishes on a yawn.

  “You’re right. I’m going to call him.” I place my phone on my chest and close my one eye. I take one deep breath for courage, but instead, pass the fuck out.

  BANG BANG BANG.

  I wish the pounding in my head would stop. Because it seriously feels like my brain is rattling.

  BANG BANG BANG

  “Oh em gee, who is banging on your door?” The sound of another human kick starts my reflexes and I fly up. I look to my side and see Jamie lying next to me in bed.

  “Holy shit! What are you doing here?” Oh God. “We didn’t…you know…”

  “Ew, no honey. You’re hot, but not change a gay man hot.”

  Oh, thank God.

  Wait… “Not that hot?”

  BANG BANG BANG

  “Oh for the love!” Jamie jumps up and off the bed. “There better be a serious fire and some hot firemen at your door for the effort I’m making to stop this damn banging.”

  I take my pillow and place it over my head. When did tequila become not such a good friend to me? Thank god the banging stops. I don’t hear anyone screaming evacuate so I assume there is no fire or hot uniformed men at my door. A few minutes pass before a not so good looking Jamie walks back into my room.

  “What?” I look at him, “Not your type?” I joke.

  “Um, well unfortunately, he could have been my type, but I think that door was meant for you to answer,” he says guilty.

  I sit up, completely alert. “What?”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure your lover boy appreciated me answering your door at seven o’clock in the morning.”

  “Shit! That was Sam? How do you know? Did he see you? Did you tell him who you were?” Blaaahhhh! I’m vomiting question after question out of my mouth. And I’m hearing NO answers!

  “Answer me!”

  “Well, I answered. And when he saw me, he thought he had the wrong door…at first…” he hesitates, “And then he asked if this was your place, and I said yes, but you were totally out of commission.”

  “What!?” I squeal.

  “What? I didn’t know it would have come out that way. I meant you are hungover. Out of commission.”

  “And??”

  “Well I think he took it as you were out of commission. As in—you had a wild night of sex with a hot model and you’re like super out of commission.” He frowns looking super guilty.

  “Oh shit.” I throw my legs off the bed to go after him. My ankle catches the bed sheet and I go flying to the floor.

  “SHIT!”

  Fighting the sheet, I finally get lose and run for the door.

  “Honey, he um… He took off shortly after the commission comment.” I hear Jamie saying from behind me. I run for the door, and swing it open. I race down the hallway to the stairs in hopes to catch him. No Sam in sight, I sprint down the steps two at a time. I make it to the front door, just as I see a car speed away.

  “Shit!” Shit shit shit.

  Why me? Just when I get mad for being accused of playing nice with my ex, I get caught looking like I just rendezvoused with a hot model.

  Hot model. I can’t believe he referred to himself as a model. Conceited little—

  Oh shit… Before I have the chance to do anything, I turn to the side and vomit in the bushes.

  TO SAY THE TABLES have turned is an understatement. Seven calls in and nothing. I might need to start facing the fact that the only sounds of Sam’s voice I will ever hear again are the ones from his voice message. At least until he gets sick of me calling and changes his number.

  What he saw looked bad. Really bad. Not that I did anything wrong. But Sam doesn’t know that. Once again he isn’t being fair and allowing me to explain. Even if it looked like really really bad.

  “I told you not to drink the problem away. I knew it was a bad idea leaving you two at the bar.”

  Patti has been sitting next to me while I lay on my couch licking my wounds. She hasn’t come out and said it yet but a good ole, ‘I told you so’ is in the works.

  “Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “I told you so.”

  “I’m not going to say it. I just want to make it known that I told you to just talk to him. If you would have done that maybe you wouldn’t have drank yourself stupid and woken up next to your drunk, super-hot gay neighbor, who I doubt your lover boy knows is gay.”

  Ugh. Like I said, I hate people who are right. “Well it’s too late for all the woulda-coulda-shouldas.”

  “You’re right, honey, it is. So what do we do while we wait?”

  “What do you mean wait?”

  “Well he can’t ignore you forever. He’ll come around. I think he’s too smitten with you to not want to hear you out.”

  “You think?” I perk up at her positive news.

  “Well, no. But I’m hoping. I mean that did look awful on your part. But the way you’re acting now, I really hope he does. You’re kinda depressing when you’re depressed.”

  I go and smack her with my throw pillow.

  “Any who, so while we wait for Romeo to come around, I say we play a little detective,” she smiles. And I know that smile. It’s the smile that got us both researching how to remove tar from our feet after we tarred and feathered the cars in the frat parking lot after Patti’s boyfriend dumped her for a freshman.

  “Patti, I’m getting too old to go to jail.”

  “Oh come on. Give me some credit. Plus, so am I. I have way too many nail and hair appointments set up to take a hiatus in a cell.”

  “So what’s that look for then?”

  “Well, while you were in zombie land mourning your horrible decisions, I was thinking…”

  Not a good sign.

  “And I think that since you still have a key to the Duchess’s place, maybe we should go and play a little I-spy.” She smiles like the cat who caught the canary.

  “You’re insane, you know that right?”

  “Nope! Think about it. He will be at the Met Gala tonight. It’s all over the news, half the town will be there,” she beams. “This means that you and I will have an open shot to go to his place and snoop around a bit. “

  “Dude, no way.” I shake my head not allowing her to get in my head.

  “Yes way.”

  “No. Way!” I am not even putting a single thought into this bad, bad idea.

  “I thought I had my fun Penny back. She would never turn down an opportunity to play I-spy?”

  “Patt
i, you know why we don’t play anymore.” I stare her down.

  She simply rolls her eyes at me. “That was years ago. We’re older and wiser now. We won’t get caught. I promise.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because! Have faith, geez!”

  I always have faith. When I was thirteen and had all the faith in the world as I bet Timmy “Bucktooth” Phillips I could make it across the monkey bars by running on top instead of swinging and ended up missing a bar and stage diving right off the side. Spending two months, my whole summer, in a cast told me to second guess having faith.

  “Just come on. I promise. All we’re gonna do is snoop. You know his place. We can be in and out.”

  “And what exactly is it that we are looking for?” I ask intrigued. Dammit, why am I even considering this?

  “Anything that says ‘I’m guilty of stealing a shit ton of money, arrest me and let my ex-best girlfriend live happily ever after with her new man.’” At this, I laugh. Like snort laugh. I bend forward, actually holding my stomach and choke on my own laughs.

  Then I return from my time out from sanity and sit back up.

  “Fine, let’s do this.”

  A quick lesson on any sort of stalking venture is to always wear black. And never carry anything that you can lose and give yourself away. Don’t forget to wear gloves because you don’t want to leave any finger prints and never, ever leave your hair down so you can leave DNA. Does this breakdown scream that someone watches too much Forensic Files or what?

  It’s about thirty minutes past nine o’clock and the Gala is in full swing. We sit across the street watching the streamed newscast of the event until suspect number one, Sir Henry Doucheshire, has officially been spotted. We head across the street like guilty little robbers and head to the back entry of Henry’s building. Security is pretty tight in the front, but if you have a special key to the back entrance, they know it’s for privacy reasons and don’t monitor it as much. Henry, that bastard has the key for the private door.

  We make it through checkpoint number one and head toward the stairway. Up the back stairway, mainly used for maintenance and deliveries, down two hallways and an insert and turn of the magic key and we’re in.

  “Shit, this place stinks.” Patti stops in front of me, causing me to slam into her.

  “Dude watch it.” I stumble to the side of her trying to allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  “For real, what is that horrible smell?”

  “It’s Cassandra’s perfume.” I gag, now covering my nose.

  “What does she wear, panther piss?”

  Ugh, close to it. Okay focus.

  “Stay on track. In and out.” I gesture for her to follow me back down the hallway to Henry’s office. Inside we go, and I signal for us to split up. This is not our first rodeo, so we know the right places to look. Leave your panties in a guy’s place that is not your guy? Always look in the lower drawer of nightstand.

  Accidently send a drunken email to your professor telling her what a cunt she is for failing you? Find a computer nerd first, and then bribe him to sneak into said professor’s office and delete it off the university server. Need to get something out of lost and found that cannot be found or it will place you at the scene of a very incriminating crime scene? Get your roommate to flirt heavily with the security guy while you crawl into the evidence room and take your missing shoe back.

  How about—

  “Bingo,” Patti whispers from over by Henry’s desk.

  “What? What’d you find?” I point my flashlight at her to see she is kneeling by an open drawer, holding up a stack of papers.

  “Oh baby! You are never going to believe this shit.”

  “What?” I hiss. I make it over to Patti, ramming first into the chair, to find her flipping through a bunch of documents that look like receipts of some kind.

  “You see this shit?” I see, but I am not sure what I am really looking at.

  “I see, but I don’t see.” I reply

  “Look!” She points to the signature. And low and behold every single form has Cassandra’s autograph on it.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Holy shit is right.” She pulls out her phone and starts clicking picture after picture of each document.

  “So you think she’s behind the money theft?”

  “I don’t know but why is her signature on all these documents to transfer money?” I shrug, “How the hell should I know? But if they are in Henry’s desk then he obviously knows about them.”

  “Which means Henry is just as guilty as she is.”

  But…

  “You know. I actually wouldn’t be shocked if he didn’t.”

  “What?” she screeches.

  “Shhhh! What’s wrong with you?” I go to cover her mouth.

  “Sorry.”

  “So just hear me out. On more than one occasion Henry had mentioned how Cassandra does everything and he would be lost without her.”

  “Yeah, as in who would wash his balls?” We both chuckle. Humor is acceptable at any time. “Any who, so anytime I attempted to pay attention and inquire, he literally couldn’t even answer me. His response was I’m not sure I would have to ask Cassandra, telling me she handles all of that.”

  “Okay, you have intrigued me. Go on.”

  “So, look.” Pointing to the transactions, “This stuff isn’t Henrys territory. It’s Cassandra’s. She handles all the PR and donations. She’s the head honcho of running his campaign. For all I’m aware, Henry just does the politician part.”

  “So you think he’s actually innocent, and that it’s Cassandra who’s running the illegal show here?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past that leech.”

  “Damn.”

  Damn is right.

  We decide to continue this conversation elsewhere. We make it safely out of the building and back to my apartment to further our research. We spend the night googling all the names on the vouchers and boy do we come up with some interesting conclusions. Cassandra was way deep into the pockets of a lot of loan sharks. And some very, very wanted men.

  FOR A MAN WHO is all over the Internet, he sure is a hard person to locate. Thankfully, Patti still keeps in touch with Pete’s groomsman, Trent, who offered up Sam’s home address in a heartbeat for another night with my dear friend. The concierge rings me up, and as I knock on the door, it takes a good five minutes of banging for Sam to finally open up.

  “Jesus Christ, what do you—” He sees me, and shock, then anger cover his face. “What are you doing here?” He asks while barely holding the door open before he walks away.

  “Um…because I need to talk to you,” I say to his departing back. “And you wouldn’t answer my calls.”

  “Wow, the irony.” Yep, no hiding the bitter sarcasm there. I follow him into his kitchen and holy cow! What is this? The set of the Food Network?

  “I get that and I’m sorry but—” He turns to me then. “Wow, are you okay?” He looks horrible. His normally pristine dress shirt is now unbuttoned and wrinkled. His eyes are bloodshot and he appears close to a version of myself after a tequila throw-down.

  “I’m fine.” Brushing me off, he pours himself a glass of water and drinks it down. “You know I am not one for repeating myself, so what do you want?”

  God. So rude, but well deserved.

  “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “Okay great, now leave.” He places his glass in the sink and begins to walk past me.

  “Wait! God, will you just listen to me?” I cry out to him. He comes to a crashing halt and turns causing me to jerk to a stop. “You want me to listen to you?”

  “Yes.”

  He comes closer to me, his body heat raging from him. I feel a little less confident at my pre-arranged speech and a bit more scared that he isn’t going to care about anything I have to say.

  “You know when I wanted to listen to you?”

  “Hmm?” I say nervously. My voice n
ow shaking.

  “I wanted to listen to you two nights ago when you left me feeling empty and guilty for the way I treated you. I wanted to hear your voice more than I wanted air. I wanted to hear you say anything to me, whether it be what I wanted to hear or not. Just as long as I could hear the voice of the girl who had completely owned me.” He stops, just as my heart does. He inhales deeply, shoving his hands through his already messy hair. “Shit, I would have been just as satisfied listening to you breathe. The sweet sounds that you make, the way you chew on your lower lip, or snort when you hear something only you think is funny. I laid in bed those nights trying to rehearse the song you hummed to yourself for three days straight from the Has Beens concert. Our concert. I just wanted to hear anything that was you.” He breaks off again to swallow. Closing his eyes, he reopens them, and the hurt I know I’ve caused shines through his wounded blues. And I feel that pain in my chest. “So you know what I told myself?” he asks me, but I’m not sure I can answer, so I simply shake my head.

  “I told myself to go and fight for that girl who I was struggling to be without. That no matter what happened, it couldn’t be worse than not having her in my life.”

  He’s trying to kill me.

  “And guess what I found?”

  I don’t want to walk into that one, so I stay mute.

  “I found out that there was something worse than not hearing her at all. And it was that big thing called trust she spoke so much about.” He moves even closer, his nose inches from mine. “I trusted that she would at least hear me out. But to my surprise, she had already moved on.”

  “It’s not what you…you think.” My voice is shaking so bad.

  “What Pen? What are you going to tell me? That he was your brother? Lie to my face and tell me he was your cousin? Maybe it was an accident? You were too drunk?”

  “He’s my neighbor.”

  “Your neighbor,” he confirms. The fire lights up in his eyes and I almost get the feeling I should run instead of fight.

  “So how long were you fucking your neighbor, Penny?” His anger is overpowering, backing me up until my lower back hits the kitchen counter.

  “Geesh Pen, how many other men were you playing me for?”