Page 33 of Breakup Games

“I know.” I roll my chair back a bit and open my laptop. I really did need this next hour before I have another therapy session to work. I’m behind on creating content and need to come up with an outline for tomorrow’s podcast. I have a solo episode to record instead of having a guest on, and my plan was to answer some of the most commonly DM’d questions I get. It’s easy and won’t take long to put something together, but I still need to putsomethingtogether so I can have some flow to my rambling.

“This whole social media stuff,” Mason goes on, getting up and going to the wall next to me to look at the photos and awards I have hanging up. “It’s really quite impressive.”

“Thanks.” Smiling, I look up at him for a second and then open my file for my next session with Courtney. As a therapist, I see all my clients the same and treat everyone equally. But as a person, I can’t stand some of the people who come in. Some are just terrible people and usually I’ll refer them to someone else, saying we’re not a good fit.

Courtney is one of the women I see who just won’t take any accountability, even though we’ve been working together for over a year. She’s not a bad person at her core, but uses her not-so-good childhood as an excuse for all her poor choices. And right now, she’s dating a married man who told her that he’s going to get a lot of money once the divorce is finalized and he gets a settlement. I’ve tried to tell her how unlikely that is, seeing that he won’t get more than fifty percent, but she wants badly to believe him and have an easy sugar-baby lifestyle, she won’t listen to me.

“It took time to build,” I go on. “But I’m honestly really grateful I get to do this as a job. I never imagined growing up and getting paid a pretty decent amount to make minute-long videos on the internet.”

Mason chuckles. “Can you imagine if that was an option on career day?” We both laugh. “You get a lot of negative comments from someone named K-underscore-cats.” He raises an eyebrow. “Your former mother-in-law?”

“Yep.” I roll my eyes. “I used to block her but what’s the point?” I shrug. “I can be the villain in her story. She’s the clown in mine. But really,” I go on, taking a breath. “I understand the need to make me the villain in her mind. We were close before and she and Cory butted heads a lot. I was a buffer between them and losing that as well as facing the public fallout of her son getting divorced was too much. So, she can say and post what she wants and record all the videos of me in public. It’s no skin off my back, and it’s a miserable existence to spend all your energy hating someone else.”

“That’s…that’s very introspective of you.”

I shrug again. “It’s true. Karen has her fair share of issues and came from a whack-a-doo family, but she knows the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and who wants the world to know their son was not only an abusive asshole, but an abusive asshole who had an affair while pretending to go to anger management tosave his family?”

Shaking my head, I switch over from my client files to my social media. The whole situation really does make me sad. Cory’s had a girlfriend since before we even separated, yet he’s still hanging onto me. It’s not because he’s in love with me; people like him aren’t truly capable of love anyway.

For him, it’s about control and not being able to come to terms with the fact that we only had the comfortable, luxury lifestyle we had because I worked my ass off, refused to give upon my dream of making it big with a blog and a podcast, and got shit done. I sometimes wonder if he realizes that if he puts half the effort he does into bettering himself as he does into trying to bring me down, he could have a comfortable life again without me.

But I guess that’s too much work, and having the common goal of Destroy Mira is uniting. I’ve seen it before where couples—romantic or even platonic—fall apart once the Public Enemy Number One is gone. They have nothing holding them together anymore. Relationships built on hate never stood a chance from the start.

An unfamiliar ringtone sounds, and my first thought is that it’s odd Mason’s has a Taylor Swift song set as his ringtone. Then I realize it’s the phone he just gave me, and a familiar number flashes up on the screen.

It’s Enzo.

Chapter

Twenty

MASON

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I see the number flash on the screen and I know right away it’s Enzo Moretti calling. I should be excited because we have another chance to get some info, enough for a warrant. I can time it all out perfectly and go in when I know he’s away, taking evidence before he has a chance to warn family to go in and cover their tracks. I’ve been working my whole career for a big bust like this, something that will make world-wide news and can stop a shitload of crime.

Yet, the urge to tell Mira to decline the call bubbles up inside of me. Her eyes go wide and she picks up the phone, looking at me for a millisecond before answering.

“Hey you,” she says into the phone, smiling so Enzo can hear it in her voice. She puts the phone on speaker and I come over, moving without a sound.

“Hey, babe,” Enzo replies and Mira makes a gagging motion and rolls her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. You know, you’re so different from the other women I’ve gone outwith.” That line earns another eye roll from Mira, but she doesn’t miss a beat.

“Oh wow, really? I feel like I’m just one of the girls.”

“You’re far from it. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before and it’s crazy because we’ve only gone on one date.”

And now Mira is pretending to stick her finger down her throat from the over the top love bombing. “Oh gosh,” she says with a giggle. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

“What do you say we continue this and let me take you out tonight?”

“Mhhh, I would love to but I have plans with my sister tonight.”

I give her awhat the helllook and she swats at the air. “What about Saturday night?”

“I think I can rearrange my schedule and make that work. I’ll text you a time and place and you can text me some photos of what you think you’ll want to wear.”

She giggles again. “Like my dress or something else?”

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