Psycho Ex Boyfriend (Standalone New Adult Romance) (The Alpha Brotherhood Book 2) (3 page)

“Christ, Adam!” I yell over the music as he stands me up. “What the hell was that?”

“Just marking my territory, Sabrina.”

“You are insane.”

“You know you like making me jealous, so add a smile and a giggle to that protest for realism.”

“I don’t think so,” I retort, forcing my lips to stay firm even though making him jealous is my favorite pastime.

He lets out an exasperated sigh and says, “Then why don’t you behave as if one of
my
former lovers is a mere five feet away from us at this very moment and perhaps you’ll better understand my motivation.”

My heartrate increases immediately and my head whips to the side in the direction he’s glancing. There’s a leggy blonde gyrating against a tall man in a suit who isn’t half as handsome as Adam. He’s probably just trying to get a rise out of me, but it doesn’t matter. She could easily be one of his toys. Even if she isn’t, she represents every time he’s betrayed me, everything he wants that I’m not, every demented indulgence with every woman he’s picked over me throughout the years.

Jealously mixes well with intoxication, often removing any trace of my self-consciousness. My eyes narrow back at him and I feel my hips taking on life of their own, my body desperate to prove to everyone in the room, but especially to her, that this man is mine. He might slip through my fingers now and again, but I’ll always be the one digging my claws into his back when he inevitably returns.

“That’s my girl,” he whispers into my ear, letting out a familiar groan when I spin around to press my rear to his groin.

Our hands roam each other’s bodies inappropriately as if we’re carefree college kids instead of the refined, accomplished professionals that we actually are. At first it feels like we’re proving a point to the potential rivals beside us, but then it turns into something else, something just between us as the other people in the room cease to matter. My lips brushing his as they smile, his fingers threading into mine tightly whenever I drift more than a few inches away, that ever-present fire between us burning hotter and hotter. Our forbidden dance doesn’t last long, but it definitely gets us noticed.

The DJ announces the impending countdown and the music stops as a bubbly newscaster appears on the screen. Many of the dancers around us rush to get a glass of champagne, but all I can think about is the kiss and how glad I am that Adam showed up at my door. I always am, no matter what condition he’s in.

“
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”

“Happy New Year!”

There are shouts of joy and clinking glasses as the party goers sing Auld Lang Syne and glittery confetti falls from the ceiling. But the only celebration I need is the heat of Adam’s mouth meeting mine, the strength of his arms enveloping me, the scent of his freshly washed skin.

He says those three little words that I want to hear and I say it back, but I know that we both won’t let ourselves truly believe it, let alone live it.

Reality gets hazy after that. I’m vaguely aware of the elevator ride up to my apartment and the water that Adam insists that I drink. I fall asleep too fast, eager to escape the spinning room and unable to enjoy the sensation of his arms around me.

I wake up a few hours later, alone in the middle of the night. Typical.

Sabrina

Age 28

My alarm goes off in the morning, surprising me and intensifying my headache. It’s noon. I clearly fell back asleep. For a moment, I let myself get my hopes up while creeping out of my bedroom, expecting him to be on my couch. He isn’t. When will I ever learn?

Then I remember why Adam showed up in the first place. I rush over to my garbage can and find that it’s empty. Maybe he wanted to stay until morning, but couldn’t. His watch is still here, I wonder if he forgot it.

I do not have time for this schoolgirl crush nonsense. I’m not texting or calling or waiting by the door. He’ll either come back or he won’t. My alarm beeps again and I realize that I won’t even be here if he does. I have a meeting. Shit.

My hair is… not about to cooperate this morning. The side I slept on is redefining the word frizzy and the whole mess too tangled to even attempt to run a comb through it and do a cute poof. That wouldn’t normally be appropriate for a business lunch but I could get away with it because I’m meeting a fellow workaholic on New Year’s Day.

Low side bun it is, I guess. Did I tell Adam about this meeting? I think I did. That would explain why he left.
Oh my God, stop it!
I’m going to think about him all damn day, I just know it.

The bistro is crowded with a bunch of unkempt hungover people that make me look quite put together in comparison. Maybe too put together, uptight even. I almost wore a power suit out of habit like I was rushing to work. I scan the tables for Demi and find her puffy eyed and disheveled, wearing an oversized black sweatshirt and art pop comic book print leggings.
Artsy, I wanted to look
artsy!
I hang up my jacket on the coat rack by the door to reveal the button up shirt underneath that at least has a colorful paisley pattern. And I’m in a skirt. Close enough.

She sees me as I approach and flashes me her perfect movie star smile that always makes me momentarily consider getting veneers. I used to think it was a fake ass smile, but she appears to be legitimately jubilant and optimistic about… well, seemingly everything. I don’t really find it annoying anymore, it’s rather refreshing.

Except for the hugging thing. Demi rises from the table with open arms and I exert conscious effort to keep my muscles from tensing up like they always do. Except with Adam. He’s just… not what I am supposed to be thinking about right now!

“I am super excited about the New Year,” Demi declares.

You are super excited about everything.
“Definitely,” I reply. “I think we’re on track to perform very well. Holiday sales were far above expectations.” I sound like a damn robot. “And the new flower illustrations from Vicky are so cute!” I add in an effort to appear remotely normal.

“
Yours
are beyond gorgeous, Sabrina. We didn’t need another illustrator to complete the spring release.”

“I like her eclectic style. It’s playful. And she is an actual artist. We’re both essentially professional doodlers.”

“True,” Demi says, taking a sip of her latte. I don’t think she’s even wearing makeup. “But some of the white spaces in her drawings are too small. I thinks she forgets that she’s working on a coloring book sometimes.”

I like the tight spacing of her intricate patterns, but I hesitate to say it. It’s a challenge to color within the lines, but looks fantastic once you’re done. “I’ll speak with her about that.”

“I already have. Didn’t you notice the revisions in the first draft we sent to the printer?”

“Um… No. It slipped past me.” That is so unlike me, I can’t believe I didn’t notice. Were they even marked? “I’ll make sure to look closer next time, sorry.”

“Sabrina, don’t apologize. You
own
this company.”

“Co-own.”

“Yeah, with me,” she laughs, pushing a plate with the other half of her brownie toward me. “You seem stretched a bit thin lately, even for you. Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” I answer automatically. But it’s not. This is another one of those pivotal moments that can take a relationship out of the acquaintance zone and turn it into an actual friendship and I keep messing it up. Demi is always reaching out, always noticing the little things, always shifting the conversation from business to personal. And I keep shutting down. “Okay, not really,” I exhale as my heartrate increases.

“Let me guess. That booty call from college still driving you insane?”

“In a sense.”

“Girl, you need to cut him loose,” she says with an eye roll.

I bristle, sitting upwards and crossing my arms. An ancient memory comes to the front of my mind. I’m standing in kitchen at my mother’s house, listening to one of my aunts say that exact phrase about one of their no good boyfriends. It’s a strange recollection. I remember the room so well. The smoke stained sheer curtains on the window by the sink, the brightly painted rooster head draped with a worn dish towel, the splatter of rust across the white surface of the constantly buzzing refrigerator. But I can’t remember any of their faces. Even my mom’s.

Girl
. Women always say that to me. Black women seem to expect me to relax and speak differently than I normally do, like I’m hiding who I really am. It’s an invitation to bond, but all they discover is that I am, in fact, actually wound this tight. And I know it’s essentially common vernacular for everyone at this point, but it still sounds weird coming from white people, especially if they drag out the
rrrr
. Demi doesn’t do that, thankfully, and she is just trying to be helpful, plus I’m being too neurotic. I grab a chunk of the brownie and shrug it off.

“Sabrina?”

“Adam isn’t just a booty call from college,” I explain.

“Ooo. He has a name now,” she muses. “Must be getting serious”

I force a smile. He’s always had a name, I just never talk about it. If she hadn’t dropped by my office and found me trying not to look like I just got screwed on my desk, she wouldn’t even know he exists. That moment became an opportunity to learn all about aspects of her own personal life that I thought I didn’t want to know because you never mix work with pleasure or go into business with friends. And since I spend 85% of my life working and the other 15% sleeping, I have neither friends nor a personal life unless you count occasionally screwing Adam or going on a random disappointing date, so listening to her is actually fascinating.

What happens when business partners turn into friends? Dad never taught me about that one. That’s probably not what’s happening, however. This is just normal small talk.

“Hello?” she says, shaking me free of my over analyzation process. “
Is
it getting serious?”

“It always has been,” I admit.

“Really.” She grins mischievously and finishes her latte, waving at the waiter to order another.

“Yeah.” My stomach turns over, adversely reacting to the brownie. I need real food, something savory, even greasy. But it’s naïve to think any of that will truly put me at ease. Oh, my God, where is he? What if he’s been… No. I am not going to let my mind wander to the darker possibilities.

“So the college booty call was actually a college boyfriend, huh?”

“No, he was essentially just a booty call in college,” I reply, faking a nervous laugh because that’s seems like that natural thing to do during a gossipy conversation with a fellow female. “High school boyfriend.”

“High school?” Demi squeals. “So… first love?”

Only love.
“Definitely.”

“Now it makes sense. Those are nearly impossible to get over. You’ll just have to replace him instead.”

“I can’t,” I whisper, refusing to acknowledge the tears welling up in my eyes because that might cause them to fall. “I just can’t. I’ve tried and tried and tried for the better part of a decade. And I have officially failed. He’s irreplaceable.” Who is talking right now? It doesn’t sound like me.

“Oh.” Demi’s bubbly demeanor falls away, but somehow she seems even warmer, leaning forward and placing a hand on my arm. “What happened?”

He killed a man.
“He showed up last night and surprised me.” That’s one way of putting it. “Swept me off my feet like he always does. And left in the middle of the night. Again.”

“Is this a pattern?”

“More or less.”

“Well, maybe…” This is when any self-respecting woman would tell me to get a clue and face the fact that I’m just a piece of meat to this guy. “Look, I don’t know him, but…” Demi sighs with a reluctant smile.

“What?

“It seems like so many beautiful, intelligent, accomplished women don’t demand the respect they deserve from the men in their lives. Or they have unattainable high standards, but that doesn’t seem like you.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“Because of the history.”

“Yes.
So
much history.”

“But it was
high school
history,” she says. “You’re different people now.”

“We still fit together. And it’s not just high school history. He was a post-imploded-engagement, sorta-kinda-more-than-a-rebound boyfriend, too.”

“You were engaged?”

“Biggest mistake I didn’t technically make. Because of Adam.”

“Wow.”

“And…” I don’t understand why this specific moment in mine and Adam’s timeline matters so much, but it does. I can’t comprehend why I’m ashamed of it, but I am. This is part of the reason why I lead such an isolated life. It’s my own fault really. I should have invested more of my scarce time into bonding with other women my own age and education level instead of developing intimacy with romantic partners that left me with nothing to show for it in the end. It’s easier to share this kind of thing with a man, in bed, just the two of you trading secrets and stories in an effort to get closer, to figure out if the person beside you is the one you’ll spend your life with.

I snap out of it on my own this time and find Demi watching me from across the table, waiting patiently. “Um…” I whisper. “Adam and I were in the same foster home together for a while when we were little.”

“You were in…” Demi trails off. I can’t bring myself to look at her and chance seeing the pity in her eyes. The assumptions. “I knew you were adopted, but… How young were you?”

“We were six. I was only there for a little while before my altruistic mother decided to start her color-blind family with a rescue from the ‘hood. Asian babies were far too trendy, all her friends had one of those.”

“I thought your little sister was, uh…”

“Korean,” I finish for her. “Trendy always wins in the end, I guess.”

Demi blows out a puff of air as her head nods. “It didn’t turn out as picture perfect as she expected, did it?”

“Oh, the pictures were perfect. That was the whole point.” I sound really bitter. Ungrateful. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents and I’m extremely thankful for everything they’ve done for me.” That sentence is so well rehearsed. I say it every time I talk about my past. “I just… We had a rough start. I didn’t want to leave my foster family. I was finally starting to feel normal. Safe. We ate dinner together. All these kids, different ages, different races, different shitty stories. Then I was suddenly all alone with a nanny in a house that felt like a shopping mall because it was so big.”

“Sounds like quite an adjustment.”

“It really was,” I confess. “I’ve talked all about it with the therapists my parents sent me to see. Eventually I got used to living in a place where you didn’t dare touch anything on the shelves or walls because it might be a priceless artifact and eating very carefully because my clothes cost hundreds of dollars and had to be professionally cleaned. And I got used to not having Adam around whenever I…”

I shouldn’t finish that sentence, I’ve overshared enough as it is. Demi doesn’t need to hear about how I’d wake up screaming at night and didn’t know where I was until Adam stuck his head through my bedroom door. I remember that first night so vividly, wandering out into the hallway, wondering why there was carpet instead of tile under my feet. Wondering where my piece of shit biological mother was and why this white boy with platinum blond fluffy hair was standing here instead.

Adam wasn’t scared until I showed up, he was just playing silently while everyone else was sleeping. I interrupted his routine with my hysterics, but he didn’t get mad. Or caught. They assumed he’d been awakened along with everyone else. Aside from his sister, I was the only one that knew about the little mischievous blond boy who was creeping around the house by himself and eventually with me. He gave me a little plastic dinosaur figurine that night, a long neck. I still have it.

“I know six year olds can’t actually fall in love,” I stammer, my shaking hands reaching for my coffee cup. “But leaving Adam was the worst part. And when we ran into each other at the tender, horny age of fifteen there was already history to build on and did we ever. I was doomed from the start.”

“No wonder you’re hung up on this guy. It almost sounds like a fairy tale.”