Page 3 of A Love Like Pumpkin Spice
I glance at Lauren. She sees the meltdown loading behind my eyes. I’ve heard enough.
My eyes are stinging with tears, and my hands are shaking with anger. How could I have been this damned blind?
The sound of clothes rustling from the other side of the door almost makes me vomit. It doesn’t take a lot of brain cells to know what they’re doing.
Fucking in Jay’s old room during our engagement party.
I knew Marissa hated me. Hated that, all of a sudden, she wasn’t an only child anymore. But even for her, this is a new low. My bar for her was in hell, and holy shit if she didn’t fucking limbo under it.
“Let’s go,” Lauren whispers, pulling me away from the door as if it’s the edge of a cliff.
I follow her, but my world is packed in cotton. The walls are closing in on me, every laugh from downstairs hitting me like a slap to the face. The pictures hung on Jay’s parents’ walls mock me with every step down their stairs. Us at the beach. Jay’s birthday. His proposal. We reach the bottom of the stairs, and Jay’s mom suddenly appears before me.
“There you two are!” she says brightly, holding a plate. “Come have some cake, honey. Jay was asking for you”—she looks around, confused—“a while ago. No idea where he wandered off to now, though.”
My mouth opens, but no sounds come out. I’m not sure if it’s bile or a scream I’m holding back.
I gulp and force myself to focus. I need to get out of here. I don’t know where, but I can’t stay here, in the house where my fiancé is currently fucking my sister.
“I …” I stammer and shoot Lauren a helpless glance. She squeezes my arm and answers for me.
“She realized she forgot something at home,” she jumps in with the kind of parent-charming smile I’ve only ever seen her do successfully. “A surprise for Jay. We’re going to get it, and we’ll be backin a flash.”
“Of course,” Nora says and shows me a warm smile. “That is so sweet! I can’t wait to see it. I’m sure he’ll love it.”
“Oh, he’ll be ecstatic,” I force myself to reply, not quite able to swallow the bitterness in my voice and try to return her smile. Lauren pulls me outside, then pushes me into her car’s passenger seat.
“Fuck.” I completely deflate as soon as Lauren shuts the door behind her as she climbs into the driver’s seat. Reality crashes over me with the force of an avalanche. “Fuck, fuck!”
“I can’t believe them,” Lauren adds, cursing them out under her breath. I bury my face in my hands and force myself to take a deep breath in a feeble attempt to gather my thoughts.
It was all a lie? Every single second?
How could he?
And how did I not see it?
Lauren’s hand lands on my shoulder and draws reassuring circles over my back as I fight back my tears. And after a few more deep breaths, I lower my hands and turn to her, the ice in my veins replaced by burning hot anger.
“Lauren, I need your help,” I admit with a sharp inhale. “Help me deal with this smartly. I can’t think straight.”
“Are we going the calm route or escalating?” When I glance at her, I notice a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. I'm so glad she's here.
“Calmly but nuclear.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I want it to hurt. Want them to hurt. But I don’t want either of us to go to jail.”
“Got it.” She nods and pulls something out of her pocket. “Remind me, did you and Jay live together yet?”
“Not officially,” I say and lean my head against the backrest. Right. She was never his biggest fan and at some point, I stopped bringing him up during our calls. “We were planning on it, being engaged and all that. He has a bunch of stuff at my place, though.”
No wonder he hesitated about finding a place together. I still don’t get it. How could I not see it?
“Good. That’s good,” Lauren says with a solemn nod and hands me her phone. “Call Gus from my contacts, please.”
“Huh?”
“We’re having your locks changed.”
Barely an hour later, we’re on our way back, all of Jay’s stuff thrown into trash bags and piled into Lauren’s backseat.
