Break You (21 page)

Marla raised her cup and toasted to me, confirming what I’d thought seconds before. The challenge had been accepted by her and I knew I was in for it now. She stood and strutted over to the neon glowing jukebox. Her ass poked out as she bent over to flip through the songs, like she didn’t already know the numbers to push for the one she wanted to hear. Marla was at Blue’s nearly every night; she was what some guys referred to as a Bar Whore. She knew which buttons on that jukebox played what. It had been long ago etched into her memory.

I pulled my eyes from her long, tanned legs and glanced around the bar at all the assholes salivating at the mouth while staring at her. She was a sexy little thing, I had to give her credit there, but she wasn’t for me. Not anymore.

Matt walked to the stool beside me and sat. He called to the bartender and ordered five shots of tequila. “Shh, I’m buying a round for you, me, and those three beauties sitting over there.” He pointed to where he’d been standing, talking with the birthday girl and her two friends. “Don’t tell Marla I didn’t buy her one. Here, help me carry these over there.”

He scooped up three shots between his fingers and nodded to the two left. Marla sauntered over to us as the song she’d chosen—
Pony
by
Ginuwine
—began to blast through the bar. There were some hoots and hollers after her, along with some foul-mouthed catcalls. If any other girl in this place had decided to play that song in particular, they would have been booed at. But not Marla. Every guy in here was waiting for her to dance to it.

“One of those bad boys for me?” she asked. Her hip cocked to the side as she stopped in front of me and flashed me a flirty smile.

Damn, she looked good.

I licked my lips as I met her stare. A jolt of excitement surged through my body, congregating in my pants, from the smoldering look swirling within those blue eyes of hers. She really knew how to get exactly what she wanted from a guy.

“Nope,” Matt said. He nudged my arm. “Come on, man. They’re waiting.”

I scooped up the remaining shot glasses and followed Matt, glad to be away from Marla. We had no sooner set the glasses down in the center of the table and Matt had introduced me, when Marla came over with a shot glass of something of her own. She threw her arm over my shoulder with a large, friendly smile plastered on her face.

“Hey, happy twenty-first!” she shouted. “Let’s toast!” Her arm left my shoulder to wrap around my waist and pull me up against her. Matt shot her an annoyed look and I just stood there. What the hell was she doing?

“Raise ’em up, ladies!” Matt shouted. His face was red from all the alcohol he had already consumed, but he was willing to drink more if it meant he could sleep with the birthday girl. “Let’s toast to turning twenty-one! It only happens once in a person’s life, so you’d better make the best of it tonight, princess!”

We all raised our shot glasses and toasted to that. Whistles and shouts rang out from the girls and Matt. Marla pulled her cell from her pocket and tapped the girl nearest to her on the shoulder.

“Can you take a few pictures of me and my boyfriend?” she asked in that super-sweet tone of hers.

It hit me then—Marla meant pictures with me. She was practically branding me as hers in front of these girls. “Marla, I don’t think—” I started, but she cut me off.

“Come on, sugar. Please?” She poked out that damn bottom lip of hers and I felt put on the spot.

“Aww, you two are so stinkin’ cute!” the girl holding Marla’s phone shouted over the music. “You look made for each other.”

“Thanks.” Marla grinned. She maneuvered herself to where she was pressed up against me even more and wrapped my arms around her. That was picture one. Picture two was steamy and reeked heavily of seduction. “Keep taking pictures,” Marla instructed the girl.

She spun around to face me and pressed her ruby red lips directly to mine. My hands were oddly wrapped around her at the time and she adjusted them until they rested on her ass while she continued to kiss me.

I took a step back, the sound of the camera on her phone still clicking away. “Marla, look… I can’t… It’s…” I couldn’t even finish a damn sentence I was so shocked.

“Aww, he’s shy! How sweet!” the girl with the phone laughed at me.

A hum of laughter burst from all the girls at the table, including Marla, and I couldn’t breathe. I shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t right. I’d fucked up with Blaire and I needed to figure out how to fix it. I couldn’t do that here. Not like this.

I did the only thing I knew to do—I called my mom in the middle of the night and had her come pick me up like a fucking loser.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

BLAIRE

The first thing I did when I woke up on Monday morning was check my Facebook. If Paige and Lauren knew how many times throughout our girl night I’d checked to see if Jason had messaged me, they would have been pissed. I couldn’t help it though. At this point it had become a sickness. I needed to know the second he chose to say something to me, if ever.

No message bubble from him came up when Facebook opened. Heaviness entered my body at the same time my heart felt as though it shrunk to the size of a pea in my chest. Was he ever going to talk to me? Did he even care? Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

Scrolling through my news feed, I glanced halfheartedly at everyone’s new updates and pictures of crazy things they’d done over the weekend. A set of pictures caught my attention and brought my heart to a standstill. They were pictures of Jason and Marla. New pictures. Ones taken last night, apparently; at least. that’s what Marla’s tag said. In them she was dressed like the She-Devil from hell that she was and Jason looked plastered. The first picture was of them kissing chastely, his hands wrapped around her. The second was of her hands sliding up to grip his as they continued to kiss. And the third was of them continuing that endless kiss with his hands cupping her ass.

While I had been worrying myself sick and attempting to let my best friends cheer me up, he’d been out partying at the bar with Marla. Again.

My heart pounded so loudly that it roared in my ears. How could he? Obviously he didn’t give two shits about me or this baby he’d helped create. Time seemed to stand still as I mulled this over repeatedly. I’d closed out my Facebook, but the images were still engraved in my mind. Each time my eyes closed the pictures flashed in vivid clarity.

Forcing myself out of bed, I grabbed the scrubs and underwear I’d set out the night before, and headed to my bathroom for a long hot shower before I had to be to work. When I was finished, I made my way to the kitchen to make myself a bagel with cream cheese. Lauren was up, standing in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee, but Paige was still asleep. Knowing her, she’d be asleep for a while.

“Hey,” Lauren said over the rim of her cup. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Fine, I guess.” I went to the fridge and searched for the bagels.

“Don’t lie. You look like shit.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Gee, don’t sugarcoat it any, please.”

“You know me well enough by now to know that I don’t do the whole sugarcoating thing.” She smirked. “But seriously, you don’t look like you slept well last night, and considering I was the one who slept on the couch, I find that sort of ironic.”

“I have a lot on my mind lately.” My voice cracked. The tears I thought the shower had washed away pooled in my eyes once more. I shook my head, hoping to shake them away before they fell. “A lot.”

Images of Marla and Jason crept back into my head. How was my first child going to be born into a nonexistent relationship like this? How had I let this happen? I’d been so stupid.

Exhaling, I popped the bagel in the toaster and grabbed a paper towel. Lauren moved to stand beside me. She pulled me into her arms and hugged me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I figured being an ass would lighten the mood and make you laugh. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I’m not crying,” I said. I wiped the pooling tears from my eyes before they spilled over completely.

“Yes, you are. It’s okay, you know,” she whispered. “You can cry. You deserve to.”

“No. I don’t,” I sobbed, unable to keep my tears at bay any longer. “This is supposed to be a happy moment in my life. I should be happy when I’m pregnant, not a blubbering mess, angry and pissed at the father. This is
so
not the way I wanted this phase of my life to go.”

“Things happen for a reason. I’ve always been a firm believer in that.”

“Then why this? Why now?” I asked. My sobs were growing louder and it was harder to catch my breath in between. I was a mess.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry, but you know me and Paige are always here for you. Whatever you need.”

“I know,” I said. And I did. They were honest friends and I loved them for it.

“Everything will be fine.” She pulled away and retrieved my bagel from the toaster. I watched as she spread on the cream cheese. “You only told him on Saturday. Give him some time. I think he’ll come around.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks in full force at her words. “No, he won’t,” I sobbed. “I saw his Facebook this morning. He’s been partying at the bar, kissing some slut we went to high school with named Marla all night.”

“What?” Lauren sounded just as pissed as I’d felt when I first saw the pictures. “What the hell is his problem?”

I hung my head. “I don’t know.”

“Here, eat.” She shoved the bagel at me.

“I’m not hungry now.”

“I don’t care. Eat,” she insisted. “Will hearing someone else’s shitty news cheer you up? It always does me.”

I chuckled. “Sure, it’s worth a shot.”

“All right.” Lauren grinned. “You ready for this? Jimmy Moon only wants me for my body.”

“What? Not Jimmy Moon!” I laughed, because I’d known that was all he was after from the start and so had Lauren. This was no surprise at all.

“Seriously, he
told
me.”

“He did not.”

She nodded. “He did. The other night. Right after we had sex.”

“Wow, he’s got balls!” I said, unbelieving a guy could be so bold.

“Oh, that he does.” She winked at me. “So, I’m being used. Honestly, I don’t care though. I’m using him too. The sex is amazing. He can use me all he wants.”

I balked at her. She was always so carefree, so hippy-like, a free soul. I envied that about her. I was more scheduled and structured with everything. A control freak. Lauren was the type that would travel the world if she had the money, and savor every second of it with a glass half full of wine in her hand and a carefree smile on her face. She’d spend random amounts of money on the local tourists who would show her the secret wonders of each place she went to get the full experience. Me? I’d be counting every penny I spent, hoarding it away without doing much, and making sure I had enough to get back home on.

This was why we were friends. We were opposites.

“You would feel that way about it,” I sneered.

“Don’t judge.” She smiled, knowing I was only teasing. “Have you heard Paige’s bad news?”

I shook my head. Paige had gotten bad news? Why was I just now hearing about it? “No.” I tore a small bite of my bagel off and forced it into my mouth.

“You know she had that meeting with her dad, right?” I nodded and waited for her to continue. I’d completely forgotten all about that. I hadn’t even asked her how it had gone. I was a horrible best friend. “Her dad said that if she doesn’t slow down on the spending and get control over her addiction to shopping, he’s going to cut her off.”

My heart lurched to my throat. Most people would think that was an easy fix. They’d stop shopping in a second. Paige was different. She harbored problems, secrets, only I knew about… Her shopping was an addiction. It was a way she made herself feel good. It numbed the pain from her life and the things she bought made her feel loved, beautiful, and worthy. She was a very materialistic person, but not the way that everyone associated the word with. Shopping filled a void from her childhood she had yet to learn how to fill another way. It wasn’t that she cared about having nice things… Shopping was a high for her, a way to release the endorphins in her mind you were supposed to feel when you were loved.

But the reason why my heart was now lodged in my throat was because if Paige couldn’t pay her half of the rent and utilities, we’d be on our asses. There was no way I could swing it alone, and especially not with a baby on the way.

CHAPTER THIRTY

JASON

My mind always seemed to be racing. It raced with thoughts of my future, thoughts of Blaire, thoughts of
our baby
. I didn’t tell anyone, though. It wasn’t anyone’s business but mine, and there wasn’t a single person who could guide me in the right direction but me.

I knew this without a shadow of a doubt.

Two weeks had passed. During those two weeks I’d sent Blaire numerous messages about wanting to meet up with her—for a meal, for a soda, for whatever just as long as I could talk with her—but she never answered a single attempt. After the first week of her not answering my Facebook messages and me not seeing her at Cross Meadows, I drove over to her apartment. I’d become a freaking stalker and I didn’t give a shit. She needed to hear me out. I deserved that much.

Paige had been the one to tell me to leave the first time. She’d said Blaire realized I wasn’t ready to deal with something so massive and life changing at the moment. That she herself was handling it hard and that maybe it truly was best if I gave her a little more space to wrap her head around things as well. Paige was so sweet and innocent looking in the face that I had no idea she was pulling my leg and sugarcoating the shit out of the situation to bypass my feelings. Obviously the girl sucked at confrontation, because the next time I went, Lauren answered the door—and sugarcoating was not something that girl knew how to do at all.

 Lauren had all but got in my face as she told me I was a sorry sack of shit and asked how I could go out drinking with some tramp the night after Blaire told me she was pregnant with my baby. I’d stood there speechless while my heart raced in my chest, realizing my mistake—along with the entire misunderstanding—but not knowing what to say that would rectify the situation.