“I… just. I thought maybe I could do this. This one thing. Okay? I thought that I could help Mike out. I thought I could help save Jack It.”
“But with Darren of all people.”
“It was Mike’s idea,” I said weakly.
“That you went along with,” Paul pointed out. “Sandy, I have never been disappointed in you. Ever. Until this moment.”
“I’m sorry!” I wailed.
“You should be!” Paul wailed back.
“Vince!” Corey cried. “We have to get out of here!”
“I’ve already accepted that I won’t,” Vince said serenely. “It’s best if you just do the same.”
“I don’t understand how this even happened,” Paul sniffed. “How are you a real person?”
And it spilled from me then. The entire sordid tale. Going back to my first encounter with Darren and his assholish ways, all through our tumultuous relationship. I delved into the fake-dating scheme to save Jack It, how close Darren and I seemed to get, the way I thought I was changing my mind about him. Then the fallout after Thanksgiving and seeing those text messages from Caleb on his phone, ending with the twink bidding an egregious amount of money and how Darren had looked so pleased by that fact. By the time I finished, I was wrung out, my voice hoarse and face wet.
Silence fell as everyone absorbed the tragedy that was my life.
Then:
“Okay, but, wait,” Vince said, scrunching up his face adorably. “So why were you fake-dating again?”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said? We had to do it to save Jack It!”
“No, I got that part. And the part where Mike asked you to seduce Darren to get to my dad. But then you told Darren about it right away.”
“Like a little bitch,” Corey muttered.
“What?” I asked sharply.
“What?” he asked, batting his eyelashes at me. Wheels was fast asleep, snoring, his remaining paws twitching.
“So, if Darren knew about it,” Vince said slowly, “and there was no need to fake it for any reason, why did you?”
I was g
etting slightly irritated. “Vince, you’re not listening. We did it obviously because….” I paused, frowning. “We needed to make sure that… we needed the… it was because there was the…. Andrew Taylor… gay bar… the crack babies. I mean, it was to help the… huh.”
They all stared at me.
“There was no point in you fake dating Darren?” Paul asked incredulously.
“There was,” I said, trying to keep control of the conversation. “He made me.”
“Made you,” Paul repeated. “Made you how?”
“By saying he wouldn’t help me get to his father!” I frowned. “Wow. Now that I take a step back and think on it, I don’t know which one of us was the bigger douchehole.”
“You are,” Paul said immediately. “You’re the biggest douchehole.”
I glared at him.
He rolled his eyes. “And since when can anyone make you do anything you don’t want to do?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Vince said. “Sandy really did want to date Darren.”