“Knox and I broke up,” I said in a rush. “We were never really together. We were just having really, really great sex. But I accidentally fell in love with him, which he warned me not to do. And now he thinks I’m too complicated and not worth the effort.”
Mom looked at her iced tea, then back at me. “I think we’re gonna need a stronger drink.”
Hours later I tiptoed out onto the deck with my phone in hand. The phone he’d bought me. Which meant it needed to be smashed into a million pieces at my earliest convenience.
The rest of the family was cleaning up from dinner. A dinner that Knox was conspicuously absent from. My mom had distracted Waylay from his absence by demanding a post-dinner fashion show of the new winter coat and sweaters my pushover father had bought her.
I had a headache from fake smiling.
I dialed the number before I could chicken out.
“Witty! What’s up? Did they find the bastard who broke in?”
I’d texted him and Sloane about the break-in. But this deserved a phone call.
“Stef.” My voice broke on his name.
“Shit. What happened? Are you okay? Is Waylay okay?”
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat. When I remembered what Knox had said.
“Do not shed one more tear over some asshole who never deserved you in the first place.”
I cleared my throat. “Knox ended things.”
“That gorgeous piece of garbage. Fake ended things or for real ended things?”
“Real ended things. I’m too ‘complicated.’”
“What the hell does he want? A simpleton? Simpletons are terrible in bed, and they’re worse at blow jobs.”
I managed a pathetic chuckle.
“Listen to me, Naomi. If that man isn’t smart enough to recognize how amazingly intelligent and beautiful and kind and caring and wickedly awesome at board games you are, it’s his loss. Which makes him the simpleton. I forbid you to spend one second of your time over-thinking this and coming to the false conclusion you’re the one with the problem.”
Well, there went my evening plans.
“I can’t believe I fell for him, Stef. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking, ‘here’s a gorgeous man who’s great in bed who walks my niece to the bus stop, breaks my ex’s nose, and brings me mid-afternoon coffee so I don’t get cranky.’ All the signs were there because he put them there. If you ask me—which I know you didn’t—I’m betting he wasn’t faking it. He was feeling it, and it scared the shit out of him. The beautiful, tattooed piece of chicken shit.”
“I really need to stop texting you about everything that happens in my day,” I decided. “It’s co-dependent.”
“I’ll bring it up with our couples therapist,” Stef quipped. “Listen. I’ll be back in Knockemout in a few days. What do you want to do until then? Get out of Dodge? Buy a new ‘fuck you’ wardrobe?”
He meant it. If I said I felt like flying to Rome and spending a ridiculous amount of money on shoes, he would book the plane tickets. If I told him I wanted to get revenge on Knox by filling his house with Styrofoam peanuts and cat litter, Stef would show up at my house with a U-Haul packed with retribution supplies.
Maybe I didn’t need a life partner. Maybe I already had one.
“I think I want to pretend he doesn’t exist long enough that I forget he does,” I decided.
I wanted to make him not matter. I wanted to not feel a damn thing when he walked into a room. I wanted to forget I’d ever fallen for him in the first place.
“That’s annoyingly mature of you,” Stef observed.
“But I want him to suffer while I forget,” I added.
“That’s my girl,” he said. “So it’s a straightforward Ice Queen with a side of Swan.”