Page 8 of The Trophy

“Whoever did this,” I say, my eyes narrowed at the offending petals. “He or she better be prepared to clean it up later. There’s nothing romantic about making a mess that causes more cleaning for me.”

It’s Bay’s turn to roll her eyes. “Dammit sis, when did you become so cold hearted? If one of your guys did this, are you going to accuse him of love bombing you, like you did when Topher was wooing me?”

I don’t look at her, because I know she’s going to accuse me of having a double standard if I tell her how I feel.

If this was Cash, Blaze or Luca, I’m not going to think they’re love bombing me. They have been nothing but awesome and honest with me. Topher was doing all these grand gestures to convince Bay to go out with him, but when my sister wasn’t looking, he was being an asshole to everyone else.

“I don’t know, Bay,” I sigh. “Grand gestures make me uncomfortable. I always think that if you need to go overboard, you have something to hide. It’s either a way to gaslight the recipient of your grand gesture, or a way of begging for forgiveness.”

My sister and I will never agree on this point. “Or,” Bay says stubbornly. “Someone simply wants to let you know how they feel about you and they’re making an effort to make it special. By the way, you said he or she should clean this up? Who else could it be if not one of your suitors?”

I think about it for a second. “Tasha has been hooking up with someone. She won’t tell me who. This could be all for her.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Bay says with the steely determination she puts into everything she does. “Let’s follow the trail and see where it leads us.”

“Fuck it,” I shrug. “If anything, I’ll find out who’s on cleanup duty later on.”

We follow the roses along the hallway. The red petals stop in front of my bedroom door.

“Well,” Bay beams as if she had just won the Nobel prize for smart ass of the year. “I think it’s safe to say that this isn’t for Tasha.”

I resist the urge to flip her off, because I know that she’s genuinely excited for me. Of course she’ll take all the credit for whoever did this because she bought me those three dates and she was right about me hitting it off with all three of the guys she chose. The truth is, that even though we react differently to romantic gestures, Bay wants to see me happy and has always had my best interests at heart.

I take a step closer to the door, my hand trembling as I grab the handle.

Deep down I know why I’m not so excited about one of the guys spreading red roses all over my apartment and waiting for me in my bedroom. I told them clearly that I like them all equally and I find it impossible to choose just one of them. This is an obvious attempt to force my hand.

After last night, I’m even more undecided. Rather than helping me make a choice, having all three of them in my bed, showed me what I would be missing if I broke things off with two of them.

“Come on Lake,” Bay encourages me from behind me. “Open the damn door.”

She’s right, let’s rip the Bandaid off and face the music.

Talking about music, that’s the first thing that assaults my ears once I open the door and freeze on the spot.

We couldn’t hear the music because it’s just a soft background noise, to set the mood.

“What the fuck?” I blink a couple of times when my eyes follow the trails of roses all the way to my queen-sized bed. “Jon?”

I gasp when I find myself face to face with my ex.

But the sight of my naked ex-boyfriend sprawled on my comforter smack in the middle of more red petals arranged in a heart shape, isn’t what draws my attention.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Bay voices my own thoughts from behind me, as she nudges me to take a better look. “I fucking knew it! It was you.”

Jon has at least the decency to gasp, covering his junk but the damage is done.

I can’t unsee what I just saw.

The image of his small, semi-erect penis surrounded by a large, unkempt bush of brown hair is forever burned inside my eyelids.

Not that I had forgotten it after that dick pic, but being confronted with it in the flesh is one hundred times worse.

“Jon, what are you doing here?” I ask, surprised that the sight of him doesn’t make me want to cry like it would have done a month ago.

I mean, fuck, the fact that he’s naked on my bed and that he’s clearly the owner of the smallest dick I’ve ever seen, helps a great deal.

It isn’t just the thought that I dodged a bullet on this one that surprises me. Sure, the awareness that if I had waited until marriage to discover that I had to live my entire life with a really, really tiny dick, I would have been disappointed.

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