Page 26 of First Comes Revenge

“You realize relationships exist on a spectrum, right?” Roxie asks. She spreads her hands wide, then nods to her left hand. “Over here is lovey dovey shit and vows of monogamy. In sickness and health. Over here, though?” She eyes her right hand. “This is where dirty, no-strings or attachments sex goes. If you’re into him, just try out this side of things for a change. Honestly, it would be the perfect thing to get your mind off everything that happened.”

Gemmaline works her lips to the side. “I hate to admit it, but Roxie might be right.”

“I’m going to need you to say that again in a moment, but hold that thought.” Roxie gets up with her nearly empty coffee cup, looks around, then tops it off with water from the soda fountain. She winks at us and walks up to the counter. I overhear her telling the barista that her coffee was watered down and how she wonders if she could have another one. To her credit, she’s at least sweet with the guy while she’s scamming a free coffee refill out of him.

I roll my eyes at Gemmaline, who shakes her head.

“I feel like we’re enabling her by letting this happen,” I say.

“It’s better that we let her do the small stuff so we can keep an eye on her. If we judge too hard she’ll just keep doing it in secret, and then we’ll have no idea if she’s going off the rails.”

“Good point,” I admit.

Roxie comes back less than a minute later with a fresh coffee. “What did I miss?”

“Do you ever feel bad about it?” I ask.

“Hm, no?” she says, looking genuinely surprised that I’d ask. “I don’t use creamers or sugars or anything. The majority of food costs at coffee places are actually just from buying milk. After that, it’s probably the cups and lids, which I conscientiously re-used, thank you very much. The coffee itself is dirt cheap. Refillsshouldbe free.”

As usual, she does a pretty good job of justifying her immoral behavior. Good enough that I decide to drop it, at least.

“Well?” Roxie prods. “Are we allowed to say we told you so about Vaughn yet? I think my exact words were, ‘do not date that limp-dicked excuse for a snake.’”

“Yeah,” I say. “But you followed that up by telling me he wasn’t cute enough for me, which I didn’t care about. I thought we had a connection, and his ties to the publishing world kind of felt like some kind of sign.”

Gemmaline at least has the grace to look unhappy about being right. “All the signs were there, but none of them were good. You’re a freaking Taurus and he’s a Scorpio. I don’t know if we needed to know much more than that.”

“I’m pretty sure the arrangement of the stars on the day they were born didn’t lead us to this moment,” Roxie says.

“There’s nothing wrong with believing in higher powers,” Gemmaline says, but her tone is soft enough that Roxie doesn’t feel challenged. Gemmaline has always been good at that. She dissolves fights before they can even start.

“Well, star sign or not, Vaughn was a bag of dicks. Wet dicks. Moldy, wet dicks.”

“Ew,” I laugh.

“Can this Jameson guy really stop them from publishing the book?” Gemmaline asks.

“I hope. But I have no idea. I honestly can’t think too hard about it or it makes me sick to my stomach. Right now, I’m just pretending that isn’t even happening. Maybe Jameson’s legal team will come back with good news or something.”

“So, what are you doing as far as revenge goes?” Roxie asks.

I grin. “I mean, I am going to a Halloween mixer with Jameson in four days. It’s a joint event between Landmark and Gray Wolfe.”

“That’s a start. What are you wearing?” Roxie asks.

“I don’t actually know yet. Jameson suggested something really slutty. He said he has a friend of a friend who does costumes for movies. Apparently, they’re working on something for me. I think maybe it was just an excuse for him to keep texting me questions about my bra and panty sizes.”

I see the way they’re looking at me, which makes me wish I hadn’t offered up so much detail. “So, like,” Gemmaline says. “You made it sound like this was kind of a mutual opportunity to stick one to Vaughn. The more you talk about Jameson, though, the more it sounds like it’s not just some pretend arrangement.”

“I don’t know what it is,” I admit. “It’s confusing. I think that’s all I know for sure.”

Roxie shakes her head and sips at her coffee. She leans back in the chair, throwing her arm over the empty chair beside her. “Good for you. The best cure for sour dick is fresh dick. I think you’re making a very uncharacteristic, but very wise choice.”

“Did you guys actually, you know?” Gemmaline asks.

“No, definitely not. He wants to. He’s very…open.But I also get this impression there’s something he’s not telling me.”

“What else are you going to do about Vaughn?” Roxie asks. “Making Vaughn jealous is a great start, but aren’t you going to annoy him? Make his life a little more irritating? You know, prank his ass.”

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