Page 14 of Ghosted By Texas

It took another fifteen minutes to get to Austin’s apartment, since he lived across town. Thankfully, traffic was lite, and the cops usually placed themselves closer to the bars at that time of night.

I pulled up outside Austin’s place and noticed right away that the living room light was on. At first, I thanked God for small favors, that he hadn’t just gone to bed angry, but then movement in the window caught my eye. Jordan was standing there. She opened her coat, as if to take it off, and the only thing the woman wore was a pair of barely-there panties and a bra that failed at containing her tits.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I mumbled to absolutely no one inside my car. I glanced to the side and found Austin, sitting in his comfy chair in the corner of the room. His relaxed posture with legs spread wide, body slouched down, and a beer sitting beside him, made it look for all the world as if he was waiting for a lap dance from his nearly naked best friend, fuck buddy, or whatever the hell she was to him these days.

He had lied to me again. She wasn’t even supposed to be back in town yet. So, what was she doing at his house, in lingerie, on Valentine’s Day when we were supposed to be out at a party together? Had he been planning on ditching me all along to come home to her? I swiped angrily at the tear that dove down my cheek. They were talking, her arms were flailing and then she smiled widely at him and moved forward, as if she were going to give him that lap dance scenario that I’d imagined moments ago.

The fact that I sat there watching the woman parade herself in front of him for more than ten minutes, and he never once showed her naked ass to the door, proved that he couldn’t be trusted anyway. He would have flipped his shit if one of my exes showed up mostly naked and I didn’t immediately send them packing or call the police to do it for me.

Part of me wanted to sit there and wait, to see how long it would take for him to get rid of her and call or text me to let me know what happened. The other part of me, the logical one, knew that I would see things that would break me even harder. I couldn’t handle that. He was there, with his best friend and supposedly former fuck buddy, who was naked – or close to. The odds of nothing happening, when he hadn’t already tossed her on her ass for daring to come to his place like that, especially knowing I was supposed to show up…

That thought stopped me cold. He knew. It had been almost an hour and a half since we left the party separately. I was supposed to be at his apartment thirty minutes earlier, and he had a naked woman parading in front of his living room window for all and sundry to see. Maybe, he wanted me to see her there. He was done with me, and this was his way of letting me know.

The disrespect came in only second to my heartbreak as I drove back to my apartment. When I got there, the impulse to call or text to ask for an explanation was there on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to yell and scream at him for breaking my heart and disappointing me again. I did none of those things because he already gave me a visual explanation. We were through and he went right back to his twisted fuck buddy situation with his best friend who was in love with him.

I was sure she would be happy in her delusions, but I honestly hoped he choked on them. It would take time for me to get over everything. Austin was a lesson learned where those pesky love type feelings were concerned. Never again. Eventually, I’d settle down with someone who complimented me enough that we could handle coparenting better than my parents had. All my future husband would need to do was be dependable and friendly enough. My expectations for everything else would remain low, so if he wanted to run off with his secretary on the weekends, it would be fine unless he missed Junior’s soccer games or something. Then we’d fight.

~*~

Two Weeks Later

I plopped down on the lawn to soak up some of the unseasonably warm sunshine for a bit. It was still too early in the year for nearly eighty-degree temps, but somehow, I thought maybe nature knew my soul needed a boost of warmth because I had started to flounder.

My heart ached in ways that I didn’t think were possible. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back to catch as much of the sunny goodness as I could when I felt the presence of someone sitting down beside me. The feminine perfume kept me from going on alert the way I might have if an uninvited male sat there.

“Pleasant enough day for you?” The female asked. There was something familiar about her voice, though I couldn’t place it.

“Soaking it up while it’s here,” I informed the stranger.

“Kind of like you tried to do with Austin, huh?”

The mention of his name forced my eyes to snap open and my head to whip in the direction of the no longer welcome person who was crouched down beside me.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” I asked Jordan.

She grinned at me. “You looked like someone kicked your puppy, so I wanted to let you know that your puppy is doing just fine – with me. I’ve been treating him really well since Valentine’s Day. He’s enjoyed my body immensely and hasn’t thought of you once since. Thanks for fucking up with your diabolical plan to embarrass him by having your friend reject his brother. That was priceless, if I do say so myself.”

“I never did anything like that, and there certainly was never a plan, you crazy half-wit.”

“No? Too bad that’s what he thought then, huh?” She chuckled to herself. “You can go tell him I made it all up if you want, but he won’t believe you. You basically stopped calling and texting him, so it only reaffirmed that my theory about what you’d done was correct.”

What could I really say? She was probably right. Whatever bullshit story she’d spun that night, along with her lack of clothing, had convinced him that I wasn’t the woman for Austin. If nothing else had already killed our relationship, that would have. I warned him what would happen if he ever took her word over mine without coming to speak to me first. He made the choice to do just that.

“Nothing to say?”

“To you? No.” When she stared at me, as if she couldn’t believe I’d said that; I made my point. “You’re not worth my time or energy.”

“Funny, because I think you’re just jealous of me. See, Austin and I have a pact that if neither of us has settled down by the time we’re thirty, we’ll marry one another. All I have to do is make sure he never settles before then.”

“Why in the hell would I be jealous of you when the only way you can get the man to marry you is to trick him and then trap him?” I stood and grabbed my things. “I’m not jealous of you. I’m disgusted by you,” I told her as I started to walk away, leaving her still crouched there with her mouth hanging open in shock. “Oh, and one more thing, if you ever come near me again, I will commit violence on you the likes of which you have never even thought of. Austin can visit what’s left of your depraved ass in the hospital.”

“He won’t visit you in jail.” Her snide remark missed its mark entirely.

“The difference is that I wouldn’t expect him to. Stay away from me.”

I stormed home and ignored Clea’s worried look when I passed her as she was leaving with the giant turd she had for a boyfriend. When it looked like she might say something, I shook my head and went straight for my room, leaving her to lock up or not.

My best friend and I had a rift that built between us. She couldn’t help that she fell for the doubchebag’s charms, since seeing the best in people was what she did. It wasn’t that I was angry with her for how things turned out. None of what happened between Austin and me was her fault. The rift was one of timing, on her part, and avoidance on mine.

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