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“Okay.” It sounds like a question so I clear my throat and try again. “Sounds good.”
“Good. Take the day, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And then she hangs up on me.
Not sure what to do with myself after that, I check my texts. Several from Chase, all variations of I told Miranda that I came by your place to check out your work. Please don’t kill me.
I text back.
Me: I know. It’s okay.
I hit send and scroll through the rest of my texts. Wedged between texts from Tess and even more from Chase, is a text from a blocked number. Attached to it is a video file.
Something prickles along my scalp, an uneasy feeling, telling me not to open it. That whatever it is, I don’t want to see it. I ignore the feeling and retrieve the message.
I recognize myself immediately. On all fours in the middle of an unfamiliar bed in a swanky hotel room. Horrified and confused, my heart hammers in my chest, trying to remember… then I recognize James’ bare, white ass fucking me from behind. His face isn’t in the camera’s frame but I know it’s him.
Oh, my God.
I watch it the way I’d watch a sex tape of someone else. With pity and disgust and a healthy dose of scathing judgment.
What kind of stupid girl would let someone make a sex tape of them?
But I didn’t let him. I wouldn’t even send him pictures of myself when he asked for nudes. If I wouldn’t take a topless selfie, I sure as hell wouldn’t consent to a sex tape.
The part of my brain that’s still working catches hold of something. Something that has bile rising in my throat and me lunging for the sink so I don’t throw up all over the kitchen floor.
The video is time stamped for Saturday night. The night I didn’t get home until 3AM. The night I went out with Chase to make Patrick jealous.
Phone clenched in my hand, head in the sink, I breathe my way through the nausea. James made a sex tape of us without my consent. Somehow manipulating the time stamp. I wish I could say I’m surprised. That the James I dated for almost a year would never do something like that but that would be a lie. This is exactly the sort of thing he’d do.
The only thing I don’t understand is why he waited so long to use it against me. I don’t have to wait for my answer. My phone buzzes in my hand. Another text from the same blocked number.
Unknown: I wonder what your boy scout
would have to say about seeing his slut
girlfriend getting fucked like a dog.
Shall we find out?
Fifty-two
Cari
Tess stares at myphone, her lip curled in the same kind of judgmental disgust I felt when I watched it. She’s always known I’m no vestal virgin but knowing is different than having proof shoved in your face—and that’s exactly what I did.
Barely taking time to put on a pair of pants, I tore out of the apartment and down the stairs. I didn’t even stop when Patrick’s uncle called after me as I bolted out the bar’s fire exit.
I ran for the garage, heart hammering in my chest. By the time I careened through the open bay where Tess was working on a vintage Ford, I felt like I was going to have a stroke.
“What the shit?” she said, head poking out from under the hood, wrench mid-twist, when I slammed into the side of the truck. One look at my face, and she drops the wrench. “Fuck, what’s wrong?” she practically shouts. “Con—”
“No,” I screech at her, shaking my head. She’s calling for Conner. He already thinks I’m a heartless whore who’s just killing time by fucking his cousin. “Please.”
Conner walks through the door leading to the alley, a box of dry cat food in one hand a purring calico in the other. “You call me?” he says, glancing at me before focusing on Tess. “Something wrong?”
Quick on her feet, Tess reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell. “Say I love cats,” she chirps before snapping a picture. Turning her phone to face her, she smiles at the screen. “That’s going on Facebook.”