Page 25 of Follow Your Bliss

My heart sank. “Oh. Okay.”

“So, listen.” He paused beside the door of Punk Decay. “We need to talk.” He looked up and nodded at someone off camera.

I knew it. “Really?” I huffed, my face going hot. “That’s the cliché you’re going with?”

He rubbed his hand across his beard, his blue eyes catching the streetlights. “Rose, I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Long distance. You’re a great girl and all—”

“Woman.”

He rolled his eyes, and I wanted to poke them. “Woman. Of course. My whole life’s up here, and I don’t feel strongly enough about this to string it along. I’ve been seeing someone else.”

The hurt part of me shriveled under the heat building in my chest. “You mean you’ve been cheating on me?”

He shrugged. “It happened kinda fast, while I was out on tour. I really like her.”

I called it. Men. Never. Stay.

“Got it.” I ended the call. Deleted his contact info. Deleted my pictures of him and any of us together—except that one. I looked fine in that one. I cropped him out and tossed my phone on the bed. Stood up and paced my room.

“UGHH!” I growled and threw a throw pillow across the room. Why was I such an idiot who attracted ever stupider idiots?

He couldn’t keep it in his pants. Exclusivity was all I asked of him, and it was a pretty low fucking baseline. He’d never been super nice to me, not really. So why had I trusted him? Why was I seeing him at all?

Jason wasn’t even a romantic option, and in the first week of knowing each other as adults, he’d selflessly offered help at every turn, even taking care of me when he noticed I wasn’t doing it myself. And he’d asked for nothing in return. Isaac once walked empty-handed up the ten flights of stairs to my apartment, right beside me, and never once offered to carry one of my grocery bags. He wouldn’t even go down on me unless I “returned the favor.” Tit for tat, always.

I’d tried so hard to guard myself from being hurt by men by offering them the only relationships they can sustain, but clearly that wasn’t working. Here I was, hurt again. And over stupid Isaac?

No. Actually? This was for the best. I needed time to get serious about my business, and why keep someone in my life who made it harder?

My gaze landed on the ornate wooden chest I kept my sex toys in. But first, I would take care of myself. It was only eight o’clock. Jason was still at his church group, so he wouldn’t need the shower for another couple of hours. I locked my bedroom door, lowered the lights, and put fresh batteries into my favorite vibrator.

If I was going to be alone, I was going to enjoy the hell out of it.

Jason

Ten more minutes, and my fifth SALT meeting would be over. Thank God. We’d already discussed which parishioners needed our help next, when we’d go, and what we’d take care of, so now it was time for Misty’s two-faced bullshit. It was one of the three things I hated most about the group.

I barely listened as she led a discussion about sexual immorality and discovering God’s illusive plan for you as a single person. Which would be fine coming from anyone else, but having it come from her mouth irked me every time.

She’d texted me after Becca’s shower last weekend, inviting me to her house for “dinner and a BJ.” I’d texted her back and told her no, and to only contact me with information about the group. Her response?

I hadn’t dignified that with a response, and I was dreading getting her alone tonight. But I had to talk to her and make her understand that we were never going to happen and that she had to leave me alone.

“So, I’ll close out with this, from Thessalonians.” Misty stood at the front of the room at a lectern. “‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.’” She smiled, her gaze catching on mine.

She got off on her double life, didn’t she?

I looked to Reverend Paul, the former leader of our old group, because it was time for the second thing I hated. Although I never signed up for the group’s picnics, mini golf, and carpooling to church, these people were more interested in those activities than helping the old folks.

“Thank you, Misty. Now let’s get a show of hands.” Reverend Paul put his hand on Misty’s shoulder and pushed up his glasses. Poor Paul was clearly smitten with her.

Maybe if I dropped a hint about Paul, she’d leave me alone. He was a good-looking guy. Super nice.

Nah, I wouldn’t do that to Paul.

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