Page 81 of From Fling to Ring

“All right, Mrs. Hanson. Just try to keep it down. The guys are finishing up a meeting.” He walks away.

“Mrs. Hanson? What the fuck?” I say.

“Well, I am married to someone named Hanson. And the guard doesn’t know my real last name. So he can call me Mrs. Hanson. What’s the big deal?” she scoffs.

“Lucy. Hello,” a heavily accented voice says.

We turn around to find Daphne, that woman from the dressy party who was making the moves on Tyler. She seems to be lurking, I suppose waiting for Chuck. She has a skin-tight beige dress on that, from a slight distance, makes her look like she’s wearing nothing.

What is with this woman?

“Daphne. Hello. Didn’t expect to see you here.” She’s staring down the girls. “Have you… have you met Petal and Gilly?” I ask because I can’t think of anything else to say.

“I haven’t. Hello. You must be the Petal who had the party a few weeks back. The one I wasn’t invited to.”

Petal frowns. “How could I invite you? I don’t even know you.”

Daphne lifts her chin with an indignant sniff. “Well, Chuck, my boyfriend was invited. But he said I was not.”

Oh, damn. Yeah, I saw Chuck at that party and I’m pretty sure he would not be in agreement with Daphne over her claimed boyfriend/girlfriend status.

Psycho alert.

“You’re all so smug, aren’t you?” she hisses.

“What did I ever do to you—” Gilly starts to say.

But Daphne interrupts her, turning to me. “Did you know, Lucy, that Tyler made a bet with the guys against you? They said he can’t manage to date a woman for ninety days, and he swore he could. You were the first woman he saw when he made the bet, so he went after you. When the ninety days are up, he’s done with you.”

The hallway becomes silent, so silent that all can be heard is the distant hum of the building’s giant HVAC system. I stand there, staring at Daphne, waiting for a pit to open in the ground and swallow me whole.

Actually, I’m wishing the ground would swallow me whole. That would solve a lot of my problems.

Daphne’s words bounce around inside my head, playing over and over as if hearing them once was not enough and I get to relive them several more times before I get my shit together and figure out what to do.

There is a hand on my arm and I turn to see it’s Petal’s. “I’m sure it was just a joke, Lucy. I’m sure it didn’t mean anything.”

I shake her off. “Did you know? Did you know this?”

She jumps back, a frightened look on her face. “No! Of course not.”

Could it be true?

All that time Tyler and I spent together must have been a total farce. The fun stuff we did. The sexy naked times we had.

It was all bullshit.

Just a game, at least to him. I was an amusement for him and his friends.

I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly chilly.

“He lied to me,” I say to no one in particular.

“That’s right, Lucy. All these pro hockey players are fucking assholes. Sorry you had to find out the way you did,” Daphne says.

I look at her. She’s not sorry. In fact, she’s enjoying this more than anything else she’s enjoyed in her whole miserable life.

And I’d love to smack the smug right off her overly made-up face.

---