Page 83 of Love Me Like It's Real
Fuck! What’s wrong with me?
“I’m sorry for being MIA these last few days,” I say before I can catch myself. Because surely I don’t need to apologize.
We’re not a couple, or an item. We’re not an anything. We’re just hooking up. And pretending to be in love, or something along those lines. There’s nothing in this charade that requires constant contact or me having to apologize for being a busy man and having a job.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I sigh and let him go. Maybe focusing on today’s event will keep me distracted. It will help me not look too deeply into my mind and heart because something tells me I won’t like the answers hiding in plain sight.
“Welcome to the Smash Your Ex Piñata party,” I tell him and step to the side to introduce him to the others.
Wells and a few other members—people who only remember this club when they fail to get a date for Valentine’s day—approach us and I introduce them.
“So you’re the infamous Felix,” Wells says.
“The one and only,” Felix answers and offers Wells his hand but Wells isn’t so quick to reciprocate.
Instead, he inspects Felix top to bottom, measuring him up and I bite down a growl that’s threatening to come out.
“Rumor has it you two are dating,” he grumbles.
Felix sighs and rolls his eyes. “You need to get your information from better sources thanMaplewood Mattersthen,” he says.
Wells chuckles but quickly composes himself. “So it’s not true?”
Felix shrugs. “I think I’d like to stay mysterious,” he answers and bypasses Wells. “So what are we doing here? And why can’t it be inside where it’s warm and toasty?”
Wells watches me as I pass by him too, join Felix and walk with him to the tree where the first of tonight’s piñatas is already hanging.
“No one wants this mess in their place of business, so this is our only choice,” I tell him.
He scans the crowd gathered around the tree and he nods approvingly. “Seems popular.”
“Yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day. Everyone without a partner remembers how much they hate being single today so they come and take out all their frustrations on the piñatas.”
“Better the piñatas than real people,” he mumbles.
I laugh. “You can say that again.”
Before Felixcansay anything else, the first person walks up to the middle holding a picture in their hand and she pins it on the piñata, which shows the face of another woman when it spins around.
“Her ex,” I point out before the woman picks up the baseball bat and starts beating the shit out of the piñata.
The crowd starts hooting and cheering her on. Even Felix joins in and when she breaks the piñata and the candy falls to the ground we all erupt in applause. She drops to her knees to collect the candy and passes some of it around before Wells and I get to work on putting up the next piñata.
We watch as two people, a guy and a girl, step up, pin a photo of a man and they start bashing it together.
“Bastard,” he says.
“Motherfucker!” she says.
“Cheater!”
“Two-faced dick!”
“I’m guessing there’s a story there,” Felix mumbles next to me and I chuckle.
“I could probably take a guess,” I say.
