Page 25 of First Comes Revenge

“I’m not. It’s sweet.Damn,” I say, folding my arms. “You may be too good for me, Charli McBride.”

“There you go talking like having me is on the table.”

“It doesn’t have to be on a table. I’d have you in the kitchen, in my bed, or…” I gesture with my empty root beer float toward some trees in the park. “In those trees.”

“You said you were going to stop trying to seduce me.”

“Yeah, well, you started getting all sad and I thought I should annoy you a bit to lighten the mood.”

“It’s working.”

We share a smile, and at that moment, I don’t feel like myself. I feel like the kind of guy who doesn’t burn through people and problems, leaving wreckage in my wake without a care in the world. I feel like someone who wants to keep embracing this “stop and smell the roses” thing I’ve been doing all week–like the kind of guy who could learn to settle down if the right girl came along, because now I’ve had a glimpse of what the right girl looks like.

With all those thoughts comes my first real tinge of fear. What if Charli really just wants to pretend? I’m not sure that’ll be good enough for me anymore.

11

CHARLI

It has been a week since the breakup with Vaughn. A week since I met Jameson and ran away from his offer to publish my book. A week since I was questionably employed by my ex.

I wish I could say I have been editing like a maniac to get my book ready, but I haven’t. It’s morning now. I’m in a busy coffee shop that smells like fresh baked bread and dark roast, and I’m seeing my best friends for the first time since they left for their girl’s trip.

They’re going on and on about the trip, mostly because I haven’t dropped any of my bombshells on them, yet. I’m doing my best to listen, but the back of my mind is completely consumed by the fact that as they speak, Vaughn and Aubrey are taking steps to putmybook out into the world with Aubrey’s name on it. It makes me sick.

Roxie snaps her fingers to get my attention. “Charli, I love the sound of my own voice, but I also love it when my friends actually pay attention to me.” Roxie dresses like she’s a rockstar from the 80’s. Her brown hair is styled into a wolf cut with bangs and short curls that fall to her shoulders. She wears customized jackets and graphic t’s with worn out jeans and boots. She has always been way cooler than me, but she’s also more than a bit unhinged. She calls herself an entrepreneur, but what she does is a whole lot closer to a scam artist or small-time criminal behavior.

“Sorry.Sorry,” I say, repeating myself and pinching the bridge of my nose. “Guys, I didn’t want to be rude and spoil your trip with bad news or be a bummer before you could tell me about all the fun you had. But…”

Gemmaline leans forward, pretty face scrunching up in concern. “What happened?” She has her silky black hair in a ponytail and looks perfect, even without makeup, like usual. Her parents died when she was really young, but left her tens of millions in their will, along with a huge stake in their health food business. She spends her money and time traveling or doing all things nature-themed. She’s also incredibly generous–probablytoogenerous, and always tries to pay for everything when we’re together.

“Well,” I say, taking a deep breath. It takes me less time than I expected to unload everything that happened on my friends. I start with my crazy plan to surprise Vaughn at the convention and end with my desperate meeting in Jameson’s office and the amazing date that followed.

Roxie is tilting her head when I’ve finished. “Sensibly slutty? What does that even mean?”

“Roxie,” Gemmaline says, swatting at her arm. “That was absolutely not the most important question.” She turns from Roxie and her expression softens for me. “How are you doing? What can we do to help?”

I shrug. “I don’t really know how I’m doing right now. I feel a little lost and a lot confused. I should be editing but it feels kinda pointless. Like, what if I never get the book back?”

“You’ll get it back,” Roxie says. “If you don’t, I’ll make sure little Vaughnie Vanderprick has an accident.”

I roll my eyes, but can’t help smiling. I know she’s just talking. Roxie may have criminal inclinations, but she’s more of a petty theft and scam artist type of criminal. I can’t picture her hurting a fly. Last month, she realized she could use AI to generate endless variations of coloring book pages and temporarily became a best-selling coloring book author on Amazon. Or there was the time she “discovered” the art of selling products directly from big box stores at a slight upcharge. She’d list half the contents of a big box store online. She’d sell twenty dollar headphones for thirty dollars, two dollar mittens for six dollars, and so on. People placed orders, and then she’d go buy the items right off the shelves, package them up, and ship them.

It turns out that was illegal for a number of reasons, and she moved on to her next big idea shortly after. But that was Roxie. If it was strictly legal and moral, I think it just didn’t quite capture her interest or creativity.

“Do you really think this Jameson Wolfe guy can help you?” She has her phone out and her eyebrows shoot up. She turns it to face me and there’s a grid of pictures featuring Jameson from an internet search. He’s with beautiful women in several of them. There’s even one of him where he must have been quite a bit younger. “This is the guy?” she whisper yells.

“Wow,” Roxie says, yanking the phone from her and staring. She pinches her fingers and spreads them out, zooming in on something. “Damn. For once, you have good taste. Usually your boyfriends look like their hobbies include stamp collecting and building model train sets.”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

Roxie waves me away, smiling to herself. “Don’t go flying out of your panties. I’m just fucking with you.Totally serious, though,” she says under her breath.

I pretend not to hear her. “Yes, that’s him,” I say to Gemmaline.

“Wow. He’s really hot. But you’re saying this thing between you guys is just like some revenge arrangement? Isn’t that kind of weird?”

“Kind of? No, it’s super weird,” I say. “Especially because the last thing I want right now is another relationship. But then it’s like this sort of amazing guy falls into my lap literally moments after I realize Vaughn is cheating. Part of me doesn’t want to let him go, but the other part of me knows that’s selfish because I’m definitely not ready to trust someone with my heart again.”

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