Page 55 of Playing Pretend

“BEAT THE FUCKERat his own game,” said Aaliyah, sipping her wine. I giggled into my glass. We’d been sitting outside on the terrace for the last hour. Amy Winehouse crooned in the background, singing about a woman named ‘Valerie’ while I filled Aaliyah in on what had happened with Caleb.

“Screw him and then run away like a dog with his tail between his legs?”

“No,” she huffed, like I was missing the point. “Blow hot and cold, and see how his dick likes it when you leave him unsatisfied.”

“But he didn’t leave me unsatisfied,” I laughed, watching with deliberate amusement as Aaliyah’s mouth twisted.

“Okay, I know I said you can tell me what happened, but Caleb is still my boss, and I’d rather not be thinking about his sex life or how good he is with his wanger.”

I spat out my last sip of wine, and almost choked. “Wanger? What the hell is that?”

Aaliyah flicked her hand in the air. “Penis. Dick. Cock. Whatever you call it.”

“Wanger is the worst of them!”

“Actually, no. ‘Penis’ is the worst of them. There’s nothing attractive about that word.”

“There’s nothing attractive about a penis,” I snickered from behind my hand. Aaliyah gave me a side-glance. “It might not look attractive, but if he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, then honey, you shouldn’t be looking at it at all.”

My mouth formed a smirk. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Are you talking about Devon’s wanger, or Landon’s?”

With a smug expression, Aaliyah drained the remainder of her wine and I decided then that as far as friends went, she wasn’t a bad one to have. I liked the person she’d become after she’d officially started dating Landon, even if I couldn’t tell her as much. I’d come to realize that Aaliyah struggled with affection of any nature. Either way, I was thrilled for her.

“Did you have a date tonight?” I asked after a while had passed. It was just past nine o’clock, and the air was warm, and a little muggy. Somewhere between my three glasses of wine, and my conversation with Aaliyah, I was able to put things into perspective.

“I rescheduled,” she replied, bending down to grab her phone. “Chicks before dicks and all that.”

I shook my head, a smile playing at my lips. “I didn’t call you, Liy. Caleb did.”

Aaliyah grinned, and righted herself, her phone in her hand. “That’s beside the point.” Her grin fell. “Oh fuck…”

Just then my phone went off, and I lifted it from the floor beside me to see a Google Alert.

“No, Kadence, don’t look…” Aaliyah’s words trailed off, and my stomach plummeted to what felt like the lobby of the Puck building. The Google Alert came with the caption “Trouble in Paradise for New York’s hottest new couple?”, followed by a picture of Caleb talking to a busty brunette dressed in nothing but dark shades, and a white bikini. It was dated to that afternoon, and from the location of the photograph I could tell it was taken in the Hamptons. Caleb was smiling, the woman beside him laughing, and the moment a little too intimate to be photographed intentionally.

“Kadence, I don’t think it’s what you think it is.”

“Don’t defend him, Liy. Just don’t.”

I scrolled down, and the photograph that came next made my heart stutter in the most painful way. It was another picture, this one with the brunette holding a sleeping Braelynn in her arms with Caleb looking at them with genuine affection. I wasn’t sure when I came to the impudent assumption that they belonged to me, but I had, and I couldn’t escape the unwarrantable feeling that the stranger in the photographs had taken something from me.

As if on cue, my phone rang, but when I saw Caleb’s name flashing on the screen I declined without hesitating. Seconds later, Aaliyah’s phone also rang, and the plea in my eyes to decline his call went ignored.

“Hello?”

I blew out an incensed breath, wondering why Caleb felt the need to ruin everything. It’s as if he knew the exact moment I thought I had everything figured out, and decided to prove how ‘unfigured’ out I really had it.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Aaliyah cast her glance in my direction, her black brows furrowed. “Because you were an asshole, Caleb.”

I heard a rumble from the other end of the line, and then Aaliyah’s phone was in front of me.

“He wants to talk to you. He’s being pissy, so I don’t think he’ll take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Again with the trampling.

All because Caleb wasn’t getting his way.

With renewed chagrin, I snatched the phone from Aaliyah’s hand and pressed it to my ear.