Another Shot At Love Page 15

  “You aren’t serious yet, which is why it’s important to invade his privacy now. Before you get serious with someone you don’t know. I run background investigations on all my dates.” She leaned in. “Perks of having a special-ops-cousin-gone-private-investigator. You should see his drawer of tasers. So cool.”

  “You and a taser gun? That’s scary. Leo didn’t give you a taser, did he?”

  “Of course he did. He’s worried about my safety.” Roxanna made it sound as if it were nothing more than gifting a hosta plant.

  “I guess I can see his point, though it’s not like you’re hanging out down at the bars on Fourth Street.” I handed her the envelope again, and she still wouldn’t take it.

  “Just a sec,” she said and disappeared around the partition. When she reappeared, she was holding a black taser gun. The only reason I knew what it was is because I’d been watching this doomsday-prepping show and there’d been a spotlight on weapons.

  “Holy shit, put that away!” I snapped, my hands instantly clammy. “I’m pretty sure you can’t have that here.”

  Tricia perked up and scooted her chair over to join us in my cubicle. “Does he sell those? I could use one.”

  Roxanna shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s not a taser gun dealer; he investigates cheating husbands and insurance fraud.”

  “Ask him where I can get one,” Tricia said, not to be deterred.

  “You are not allowed to taser your deadbeat ex-boyfriend,” I told Tricia. Although, if anyone had a right to taser an ex, it was Tricia. “Unless there’s a low setting on that thing?”

  Roxanna shrugged. “I’m not sure. He explained how to use it, but Lexie kept texting me about this background investigation thing and I wasn’t paying much attention. I’ll ask him later.”

  “I bet it does have a low setting. It’s not assault if the person provokes you, right?” Tricia asked and I laughed.

  “I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Maybe if your ex forced his way into your house or something,” I suggested. And I wondered if maybe I needed a taser gun, too. I was too paranoid about alien abductions to grocery shop at night, which was completely inconvenient since sometimes a person ran out of milk or Midol in the middle of the night. With a taser gun, I could probably start night-shopping again. And, it might come in handy at the engagement party if Brent came too close for comfort. And by too close, I meant within fifty feet.

  “If he provokes me, I can taser him,” Tricia insisted.

  “No, if he attacks you, you can taser him,” Roxanna corrected.

  “Oh,” Tricia said with a tinge of disappointment.

  Roxanna returned the taser gun to her purse, then sat down next to me again. She pulled another document from the envelope, holding it up by its corner like a piece of dirty laundry. “I’m concerned about his recent divorce.”

  Now she had my full attention. My heart skipped a beat. “Divorce?” I croaked.

  A black stapler landed on the carpet across the aisle with a soft thud, dragging my attention from Roxanna and the jaw-dropping words that had just come from her mouth. Britney, the newest member of our team, leaned over in her chair to snatched it off the floor next to her feet. Her cheeks were pink, as if she were embarrassed for having drawn any attention to herself. Her cubicle was across the aisle from Roxanna’s, so she had a clear shot of what was going on, but because she was so quiet and hardly ever spoke to me or anyone else on the team, I often forgot she was even there. Her eyes were now on the document in Roxanna’s hand, staring at it with such intensity, it made me curious.

  Tricia wasn’t distracted by Britney. “He’s divorced? Like how recently?” she asked, craning her neck from across the aisle to get a glimpse of the divorce papers.

  “A month,” Roxanna said.

  Tricia whistled and I snatched the papers out of Roxanna’s hand. “He never said a thing about being divorced. That seems like something he should have mentioned if it’s that recent.”

  “They never do.” Roxanna put her finger on top of the papers and nudged them down so she could meet my eyes. “It’s a man’s nature to withhold this kind of important, game-changing information.”

  “So true,” Tricia said with a nod. “Men are pigs.”

  “Not all men are pigs,” I corrected. But really, why hadn’t he mentioned it to me? There had to be an explanation.

  “Most are,” Tricia said, but I dismissed her comment. Just because she had ex issues that made Brent look like an angel, the cheating bastard.

  “It’s not like there’s been any really appropriate time to bring it up,” I said. And then I shook my head, because there probably wouldn’t ever be an appropriate time to mention something like a divorce, unless I asked. And why would I ask if he’d never mentioned it? And it wasn’t as if he and I were really close—we’d only just met. Two weeks was hardly the right time to bring in the exes. Except, you told him about Brent.

  “And really,” I added, “it’s not my business.”

  But, I kind of thought it was my business. Wasn’t it? We’d kissed a couple of times. Shouldn’t I know where his mouth has been?

  “Quit making excuses for him. The ink’s barely dry on the judge’s signature. Three years of marriage and then, BAM!” Roxanna slammed her palm down on my desk and I jumped in my seat. “Irreconcilable differences.” Roxanna leaned forward and grasped the arms of my chair, her face just a few inches away. “Maybe he’s got some weird fetish his ex couldn’t handle. Like maybe he masturbates to polka.”

  I laughed and lightly shoved her away. She rolled an inch backward in her seat. “You are such a freak. Knock it off.”

  “Or maybe he wears women’s crotchless panties,” Tricia piped up.

  “Or maybe they just didn’t get along,” I said, noticing we now had the attention of the rest of our row. “That seems more logical than anything either of you suggested. Are we done now?”

  “Wait, what else do you have in there?” Tricia asked.

  “Nothing. Other than the divorce, the guy is golden.” Roxanna held up an 8½ x 11 glossy of Matt’s driver’s license. “He even takes perfect driver’s license photos. No one takes good driver’s license photos.”

  “It’s like he isn’t even real,” Tricia breathed in admiration.

  “He could be a cheater,” Britney said and I paused in the middle of snatching the driver’s license photo out of Roxanna’s hands.

  Tricia leaned out into the aisle so she could see around the partition separating her and Britney’s cubicles. “You think?”

  I didn’t like where this conversation was going, mostly because I’d just gotten out of a relationship with a man who’d cheated on me. There had been a time when I’d thought Brent was perfect and incapable of the kind of deception he’d brought to our relationship. Blind.

  “I don’t think he’s a cheater.” Not Matt. No way. But I barely knew him; how did I know what was true or not?

  Britney’s lips twitched and I watched, horrified, as she broke into tears.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Y-y-you c-can’t f-f-fa-a-all for th-that g-guy!” Britney wailed, tears running down her pale cheeks. She wiped at her eyes and now there were streaks of mascara and eyeliner all over her face and across her temples to her hairline. Tricia jumped up to console her, but after getting up must have realized she didn’t know what to say, so settled for a few light pats on Britney’s back.

  “What the hell,” Roxanna breathed. I shoved Roxanna’s chair out of the way and went to crouch in front of Britney trembling in her chair. I handed her a box of tissues off the corner of Britney’s desk.

  “Britney, what’s wrong?” I asked. Britney took a handful of tissues and blew loudly.

  “M-men are p-pigs!”

  I stood to look over the partitions at the other rows of cubicles. Sure enough, the crying had caught the attention of the teams on either side of us. I smiled and waved at anyone looking and mouthed, “Everything’s fine.
”

  Britney’s wailing slowly subsided until she was only a mess of sniffles and watered-down makeup. Roxanna coaxed the story out of her and we listened while she described her first love, a cute medical equipment salesman she’d given three years to before he’d cheated on her. Not once, she’d found out, but twice, with one of his ex-girlfriends. It sounded like a nightmarish replay of my relationship with Brent, so much so that I felt the anger I’d felt at Brent bubble up again.

  Britney’s boyfriend had denied it all, but after one of her friends snapped a couple of pictures of him making out with a redhead in a Jacuzzi at a party, he hadn’t been able to lie any longer. That was the third time she’d caught him cheating. The first two she’d never been able to prove, but she knew the stories were true. Now she had proof and didn’t doubt for one second he’d been lying to her, for who knows how long.

  “H-he’s such a b-bastard!” Britney sniffled and dropped her face into the wadded up tissues in her hands. “I was so stupid!”

  “Yes, you were,” Roxanna said with a nod. Tricia and I both shot her a look of disapproval, but Roxanna ignored us. She leaned down and grasped Britney by the shoulders. “But it’s not your fault. No one can blame you for trusting your boyfriend, or believing he would change. If he had any brains in that dumb head of his, he wouldn’t have done this to you at all.”

  “That’s right,” I assured her. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Listen honey, I’m going to be real honest with you, okay?” Roxanna asked.

  Britney hiccupped and stared at her with red-rimmed eyes full of worry over the word “honest” coming from Roxanna. “O-okay,” she answered hesitantly.

  It wasn’t like Britney had a choice in the matter; whatever Roxanna wanted to say, she would say it. Britney blinked, new to this version of Roxanna whose brutal honesty was sometimes on a thin-line of tactless. It was something Roxanna and Lexie had in common, though neither woman did it to be rude.

  In this specific instance, I wasn’t sure if Roxanna’s honesty would benefit Britney in any way, not with the break up and betrayal so recent; the poor girl was a mess. I sympathized, knowing exactly how she felt. I held out another wad of tissues and tossed the empty box into the trashcan under Britney’s desk.

  Roxanna crossed her stockinged legs and leaned forward. “First, you have got to pull yourself together. From what you’ve told us, this guy is a major piece of shit. You didn’t do anything wrong. He lied to you. He betrayed you. And sadly, this bimbo either knows about you and doesn’t give a crap, or she doesn’t know about you and he’s stringing her along too. He thinks he’s a god and he needs to wake up. Right, girls?”

  But the question wasn’t meant to be answered, because Roxanna was on a roll. By now the entire team had left their desks and were gathered around Britney, nodding along with Roxanna, tactfully ignoring Britney’s makeup-smeared face.

  “He used you. He messed with your head. He really made you feel less than nothing.” Roxanna’s voice had gone up an octave and I worried the words coming from my best friend’s mouth was really doing more damage to Britney’s confidence than good. If the speech didn’t make a turn for the positive soon, I would have to intervene.

  “Y-yes,” Britney said, blinking. Realizing she’d attracted an audience, she hunched down into her chair.

  “But it’s not your fault,” Roxanna insisted again and my shoulders relaxed. “Not everyone can tell a shit-head from a saint,” Roxanna said, and I sucked in a breath. The pick-me-up speech had really taken on a yo-yo effect. Roxanna ended with, “And you can’t change a shit-head, can you?”

  Roxanna’s unusually long pause confused everyone. Britney locked eyes with me, probably for guidance: to answer or not to answer, that was the question. I shrugged with a little headshake—hell, I had no clue what the correct answer was in this situation. Britney opened her mouth but missed her opportunity and Roxanna went on.

  “No! Once a cheating shit-head, always a cheating shit-head.” Roxanna uncrossed her legs and placed both feet on the ground to sit on the edge of her chair. “The idiot thinks he can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants. He probably thinks he’s some kind of Brad Pitt. And he’s not. It’s impossible for two men on this earth to be blessed that kind of super sexy. So here’s the dealio—your ex doesn’t deserve the dog crap in my neighbor’s yard, let alone a woman like you who is clearly too good for him. Isn’t that right?”

  This time Roxanna’s pointed stare directed into Britney’s quickly drying and shocked eyes told Britney for certain she was expected to answer. Roxanna’s crossed her arms and her intense gaze urged a fidgeting Britney to make the right answer, or else.

  “Ye-es?” Britney answered in a wavering voice.

  “Yeah, freakin’ right.” Roxanna hopped to her feet and began pacing the aisle, forcing our teammates to spread out and make room. I smiled, watching her pace. Roxanna refused to admit she’d inherited some of her mom’s Filipino flare for theatrics, but if I’d had the forethought to video record this scene with my cell phone, there’d be no way Roxanna could deny it during a replay.

  “Now,” Roxanna said, “the only thing we can do is stay strong, Britney, because weak women become pathetic victims. And you don’t want to be pathetic, do you?”

  Britney waited a few seconds to make sure she was really supposed to answer. “No?”

  “No.” Roxanna stopped pacing and stood in front of Britney, resting her hands on her hips. “You’re going to call him and you’re going to tell him he needs to give you one hundred thousand dollars or you’re going to sell the story to the media.”

  A pin could have dropped and the entire building would have heard it. Britney’s mouth hung open in an “O” of surprise and the smile froze on my lips. Realizing no one was cheering, Roxanna took in her audience with a calculating gaze.

  “Too much?” she asked no one in particular.

  I was the only one who dared to answer.

  “Um, yeah, a little much,” I said.

  “Sorry.” Roxanna smoothed a stray lock of raven hair behind her ear. “I just broke up with Blake again. I might be pushing some of my annoyance off on your ex.”

  “It’s okay,” Britney said timidly.

  Blake was Roxanna’s on-again, off-again boyfriend.

  “He’s not a celebrity, so…” Or maybe he was. I turned to Britney. “He’s not famous or anything, is he?”

  Britney shook her head.

  “I don’t think the media would give a crap about a cheating boyfriend who sells medical equipment,” I told Roxanna. “How about she just deletes his number and pretends she never met him?”

  A few nods of agreement from our teammates, but Roxanna waved her hand dismissively, cutting my suggestion to shreds.

  Roxanna leaned down and grasped Britney’s shoulders, giving her a small, yet firm, shake. “I think we need to make him cry.”

  Now I was officially worried. ‘Make him cry’ could mean a lot of things and, as worked up as Roxanna was, I wasn’t sure if her thoughts were on the violent side or back to extortion.

  “Taser,” Tricia suggested.

  “No one is tasering anyone,” I cut in before the idea took hold.

  Roxanna pondered it for too long, which meant the tasering idea had probably crossed her mind for one horrifying second too long. Finally, she said, “You’re right. That might be excessive. But he did cheat three times, so we need to keep that in mind, Gen.”

  “True,” I agreed. “But—”

  “Since we can’t taser him, we should just give him a dose of his own medicine. What you’re going to do is call him and pretend you want to give him another chance, make him think you can’t live without him and that you don’t even care that he’s living out some sort of pathetic male-whore fantasy. Maybe throw in you want him back so bad that you’d be willing to do a threesome with his bimbo redhead.”

  Britney opened her mouth to object, but Roxanna said, “Of course, you aren’t inter
ested in that, but he doesn’t need to know the truth. You lay it on thick, beg him to meet you at some skanky club where there’s more bumping and grinding than actual conversation and tell him you want to wear some kind of crotch-revealing outfit which will probably be right up his alley. Get him all worked up and excited, you know? And then you’re going to invite some super hot guy to the club who makes your ex look like a jar of canned meat. I know just the guy, by the way. You’ll all but screw Hot Guy in front of that sleazy ex of yours. He’ll be so torn with jealousy that he’ll go home and cry like a little bitch for two weeks straight. Maybe you can even threaten to taser him, even though you won’t.”

  Many sets of amazed eyes fixated on Roxanna, standing with her hands on her hips and one leg jutting just a little bit forward, her chin up, and shiny black hair hanging down her back. If she were in black leather she’d look like she’d stepped straight out of a comic book. Britney’s boyfriend was the poor soul who would endure Roxanna’s pent-up rage against the deceitful opposite sex. One of the reasons Roxanna never wanted to marry, and never cared to get serious with any boyfriend she’d ever had, was because her dad had cheated on her mom for years before leaving them. He was on marriage number three and hadn’t changed a bit, but still didn’t seem to think he’d done anything wrong. He thought by sending Roxanna monthly check it made up for all the time he’d never been around. She cashed the checks, sent him a quick thank you because he was always too busy to talk on the phone, and left it at that.

  Britney wiped her eyes. “Okay.”

  “Rox,” I said, keeping a concerned eye on Britney. Roxanna had a way of convincing others her ideas were gold, and usually Roxanna won out over any doubt.

  “No.” Roxanna gave a sharp shake of her head. “Britney is a young, beautiful, vibrant woman who needs to teach this guy a lesson and take back her confidence—her life. She might have followed him around like a little lost puppy dog, but this is it!” Roxanna slammed her hand down on the desk, hard, and I flinched, hoping the desk slapping wasn’t going to become a habit of hers.