Author: Cassia Leo

My phone buzzes as it vibrates on the nightstand. I lay the photos on the nightstand and pick up the phone, hoping it’s Adam with a joke text to pull me out of this funk. It’s Chris.

Chris: Just landed in London. I got a voicemail from Tasha. They want to meet us on Tuesday. I’ll be back by then.

Tasha Singer is the lawyer Chris hired to handle the adoption. I think it’s funny that her last name is Singer. Chris thinks I’ll find her name less funny when I finally meet her. He claims she’s the hottest thirty-two-year-old he’s ever met. He thinks this stuff makes me jealous, but it doesn’t.

I love Chris. Nothing will ever change that. But it’s not the same love we shared a year ago. It’s the kind of love shared between friends who know each other’s deepest secrets. The kind of love shared between friends who’ve forgiven each other’s worst sins.

Me: OK. I have class from 7-2. Will be in my dorm by 3.

Chris: I’ll pick you up outside your class at 2.

Me: Fine.

Chris: Don’t take that tone with me. Don’t forget I still remember all your most ticklish spots.

Me: Stop being a jerk. And stop texting me. I’m trying to study.

Chris: Goodnight, Claire-bear.

I don’t respond. Why would I respond to that? He’s baiting me.

I finish my statistics homework and start reading the text for my Family and Society class. This has got to be the worst class I can possibly be taking right now, but it’s pretty much required if I have any hope of being a superstar social worker.

I open Public and Private Families by Andrew Cherlin and I’ve only read three pages when the dormitory door flies open and Senia charges inside, her dark waves flying. She tosses her purse onto the desk and collapses facedown onto her bed. Her skirt flies up and her panties are showing, but she doesn’t seem to care as she buries her face in the pillow.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I set down the textbook and sit up.

“Ugh!” she groans. “I’m so stupid!”

Even though the pillow muffles her voice, I can still hear the strangled sound in her scream. She’s crying.

I get up from my bed and take a seat on the edge of her mattress. I rub her back and she mashes her face even harder into the pillow.

“What happened?”

She shakes her head then flips over onto her back. “He’s been fucking someone else, that’s what happened.”

“Eddie?”

“Don’t say his name. He disgusts me.”

Senia and Eddie have been together for almost seven months now, but I never would have suspected Eddie for a cheater. He’s always been insanely jealous and possessive. I always assumed Senia would be the one to dump Eddie once she got bored of his clinginess.

“How do you know he’s been…?”

“I found the fucking text messages. They’re already exchanging I love yous!”

She covers her face with her hands and my heart breaks for her. Senia has never cried over a guy since I’ve known her. Even when she was a shy freshman two years ago, she’s always kept her head about her when it came to relationships. I’ve always admired her ability to compartmentalize her emotional life. Her relationships never affect her studies and school never affects her social life. I’m the one who quit school when my personal life became too much for me to handle. She’s always kept it together. It’s not like her to fall apart like this.

Then I think of what she just said. “What text messages?”

“I was trying to look up times for that new Jack Black movie and a text came in. I can’t even tell you what it said. It’s gross. He’s a fucking pig.”

My mind instantly flashes to the text Chris just sent me. Goodnight, Claire-bear. Or the text about knowing my ticklish spots. Would Adam flip out if he saw those?

I spring up from the mattress and grab my phone off my bed. It takes a while to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list of texts I’ve been exchanging with Chris, mostly about adoption stuff, but there are some texts from him that could be construed as flirty.

“What are you doing?” Senia mutters.

“Trying not to be a fucking pig.”

“Are you cheating on Adam?”

“What? Hell, no. I just want to make sure there’s nothing remotely incriminating on my phone. Chris is trying to get under my skin.”

Senia sits up and cocks one of her perfect eyebrows. “Are you really that afraid of Adam’s jealousy?”

“I’m not afraid. I’m trying to avoid misunderstandings.”

She shakes her head before she lies back down on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed. “I need to get drunk tonight.”

I look up from the screen of my iPhone, which I will probably have to trade in soon because I can’t afford the data plan without my job at the café.

“I’ll be your designated driver.”

“We don’t have to drive. We can take a cab. Please drink with me tonight.” I stare at her for a moment until her shoulders slump. “I was only kidding. You can drive.”

We decide to go to an Irish pub near campus. Eddie never wanted to take Senia to this pub, so we’re certain we won’t run into him here. She’s lucky she and Eddie don’t have any classes together this year, especially considering they’re both chemistry majors.

Not sharing any classes together was a major selling point when Senia was considering whether to take their relationship to the next level after the first few dates. But Eddie’s intensity was also a huge turn-on for her. He matched her intensity and wits, ounce for ounce. I was so certain that Eddie and Senia would one day get married. They fought a lot, but it seemed he couldn’t get enough of her feisty attitude or five-foot-ten Amazonian body.

But appearances can be deceiving.

We enter the pub and I’m hit with the stench of beer and testosterone. Social Distortion is blaring and people are yelling to be heard over the music and each other. Apparently, the hostesses don’t work Friday nights. People just come in and sit or stand wherever they choose. The booths and tables are all full. There’s a small area near the back of the pub, about the size of my twin bed, where people are thrashing to the music. It’s way too bright in here for this place to have a nightclub feel, but the atmosphere is total chaos.

I’ve been to plenty of clubs and parties with Senia, but I have a bad feeling about this place.

Senia leans over the bar to order her first drink—a gin and tonic with a lime twist—and I roll my eyes as some neck-beard ogles her ass. Senia has never had a problem attracting guys. Her model-perfect features and athletic body that she spends hours sculpting at the gym are really just bonuses. She oozes sexuality while I probably ooze “too much subtextuality.”

With her drink in hand, her eyes scan the crowded bar. “Eddie said this pub was on the corner of Drunk and Loser. I’d say it’s on the corner of Getting Over and Your Ex.”

“I think your jokes are becoming as bad as Adam’s.”

“That’s impossible. Adam’s cheese-level is off the charts.” She grimaces as if she’s in pain. “You have such a cool boyfriend. Why did I get the cheating douche-nozzle? Do I deserve this?”

Oh, no. She hasn’t even taken her first sip and I already sense a drunken meltdown coming.

“Don’t even think something like that. You always said there was something a little off about Eddie. Remember the time he asked you to do that thing in the shower?”

I can’t even say it aloud. It’s too gross.

“All guys have at least one weird fetish,” she says, looking a bit hurt that I’ve insulted Eddie.

I want to tell her that Adam doesn’t have any weird fetishes, that I know of, but it seems I’m going to be standing on the corner of Eddie is a Douche-nozzle and Eddie is a God tonight. I lean my back against the bar and consider ordering a water, when a hand waving in the distance catches my attention. It’s Tristan, Chris’s bass player, best friend, and an even bigger douche-nozzle than Eddie. He’s sitting at a booth with his arm around a blonde that looks somewhat familiar, like I’ve had her in a class or something.

“Is that Tristan?” Senia asks.

Tristan tried to hook up with Senia at a Memorial Day barbecue last year. Tristan, who can drink more than anyone I know without getting drunk, didn’t hesitate to challenge Senia to a game of Quarters. And they almost had sloppy sex on the bathroom counter until Senia threw up on his shoulder.

“Let’s go say hi,” Senia says as she grabs my arm and hauls me through the crowd.

As we approach, Tristan’s gray eyes are locked on my face. Tristan has always made me uncomfortable. When Chris and I were together, I would often catch him staring at me when Chris wasn’t around. The problem with Tristan is that he doesn’t stare at girls when he wants to fuck them. He’s only been in one serious relationship since I’ve known him. When we were seventeen, Ashley and Tristan were together for over a year until she crushed his heart. I used to catch him staring at her the way I’ve often caught him staring at me. Chris once noticed it and nearly beat the shit out of him. I guess Chris isn’t around tonight.

“Hello, Claire,” Tristan says in a smooth voice that’s just barely tinged with a New England accent from the first twelve years of his life spent in Maine. He removes his arm from around the blonde’s shoulders and runs his hand through his light-brown shoulder-length hair before he turns to Senia. “I remember you. How many of those have you had tonight?” he asks, glancing at the drink in Senia’s hand.

“First one, but I’m willing to let you buy me another,” Senia responds.

The blonde glares at Senia and the bad feeling I had about this bar just keeps growing.

“Hey, Tristan, why don’t you introduce us to your friends,” I say.

Tristan cocks an eyebrow as he stares at me and I try not to make a rude comment. As hot as Tristan is, I’ve never seen him as anything more than Chris’s friend, someone that I have to put up with.

“Claire, this is Julie,” he says, nodding at the blonde on his left. “And these two sexy beasts are Ben and Abby.”

My eyes widen at the mention of the name Abby. It’s a common name, but just hearing it makes me long for Abigail even more.

Ben is sweet looking but sort of scrawny with messy brown bedhead hair and Abby is beautiful with her understated makeup and glossy brown curls pulled up into a perfectly tousled ponytail. They both smile and nod their heads.

Tristan asks Julie to scoot over so I can sit next to him, but I quickly take the seat next to Ben and Abby so Senia can sit next to Tristan. Tristan casts a knowing glare in my direction and I roll my eyes so he knows I’m not impressed. Chris and I may not be together, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to jump on Tristan’s bandwagon.

“Chris didn’t want to come out with us tonight,” Tristan says, a slightly bitter tone in his voice as if I’m responsible. “He had other plans.”

I know Chris is in London, but I’ll play along. He’s trying to make me jealous, like I care if Chris is out with another girl.

“That’s too bad. Sounds as if he went solo tonight,” I reply. I’m not sure if Tristan has gotten over Chris going solo last year, but judging by the unimpressed look on his face, I hit a nerve.

He quickly recovers and smiles at me, the same smile he uses on stage to make the girls swoon. Chris has his own smile he uses on stage. He calls it his “crowd smile.” Chris’s crowd smile is a warm grin that tugs the left side of his mouth up just a bit further than the right. Tristan’s version is a bit more subtle, but just as sexy.

I manage to ignore his stares and taunts for the next hour as everyone on his side of the booth gets shitfaced drunk. Ben, Abby, and I watch in a combination of amusement and horror as Tristan alternates between sloppily making out with Julie and whispering in Senia’s ear. Senia smiles in response and slides out of the booth.