TEAGAN: Come by this weekend! How are things?
GWENN: I ran into Devlin. He’s making everyone miserable because he misses you.
Teagan rolled her eyes. Maybe Coco could lift his spirits and show up at Devlin’s office in her pearl thong. He was just being his cranky old self. The man only smiled around his siblings. Well, and her… She filled her glass with more wine and typed her answer.
TEAGAN: He can’t be missing me that much… I didn’t hear from him once.
It still stung that he let her go that night. And that he never even bothered to talk things out.
GWENN: And how many times did you call him?
Teagan typed a reply and deleted it. What was there to say? After their argument, there had been nights that she’d questioned herself. She almost went to the Pink Flower to ask for her job back since she finally quit the Dance Academy this week.
The only reason she had continued this long was because she’d wanted her parents’ approval. Now that she would live on her own, she figured she could use every extra hour at Errin’s dance studio and Lucky’s supporting herself. She wouldn’t do anything else with her dancing career than she already did, so that degree was pretty futile.
She had loved working at the Pink Flower. Teagan still kept in touch with Julie, who gave her some ins and outs about the strip club. Business was picking up and three new girls were starting next week.
TEAGAN: Who is going to work with the new girls at the Pink Flower?
GWENN: You are.
TEAGAN: Ha. Fat chance.
Gwenn video called her, and Teagan groaned. “What?” she said as she accepted the video call.
Gwenn stood in the middle of the Pink Flower with her back turned towards the bar. Teagan saw Devlin sitting on a barstool in the background, talking to Fox. Her heart dropped in her stomach. She hadn’t seen him in over a month.
All the feelings that she thought were gone thundered over her.
“Gwenn…”
She called out to Gwenn once again, but gasped when Devlin turned on his barstool. He narrowed his eyes as he took in Teagan’s face on Gwenn’s screen.
“Gwenn!”
“Yeah?”
“I need to go,” Teagan said. She quickly shut off her phone and placed her wine on her bedside table. She dropped back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. Tears poured from her eyes, morphing into unstoppable streams of sorrow. After stabbing one tear away, the next came falling down her cheek.
“I will get over him. I’m starting over. I don’t need him. I just need to get through this.” She sobbed into her pillow for a long time before she fell into a fitful sleep.