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Conner narrows his eyes at her for a second before shrugging. “Go for it. Pussies love me.” He flashes her a lop-sided grin before heading into his office, cat perched on his shoulder.
“You’re disgusting,” Tess calls after him. As soon as he’s gone, Tess pockets her phone. “What is happening?” she says quietly, grabbing me by both shoulders. “Cari, tell me what’s wrong?”
I can’t say it. I just hand her my phone.
It takes her a few minutes to say anything. “Dirty motherfucker,” she hisses under breath, glaring at the video. Using her thumb to navigate my phone, she looks up at me. “He sent this Sunday night?”
“I guess.” I shrug because I don’t know why it matters. “I just got it this morning. I…” I don’t even know what to say. That I all but ignored my phone because Patrick and I spent the last two days fucking each other’s brains out. That aside from Monday, we haven’t said more than two words to each other. That like everything else, I fucked it all up.
Tess waves her hand like she doesn’t care. “Whatever—listen,” she says, and I brace myself for the tirade I know is coming. Every horrible thing I’ve ever said about myself is going to come out of her mouth and it’s going to kill me. “It’s going to be okay, do you hear me? We’re not going to let that piece of shit get away with this.” She puts her arms around me, and even though the top of her head barely hits my ear, I feel myself crumple against her like a piece of wet paper.
“He did something to the time stamp,” I tell her. “It says the video was made the night I went out with Chase. You can’t see James’ face in the video. He’s going to show it to Patrick and he’s going to think—”
Tess pulls away just enough to bring us nose to nose. “Give Cap’n some credit, will ya?” she smiles and shakes her head. “He knows who you are.”
I take a step back, rubbing the tips of my fingers under my eyes. They come away wet.“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She frowns at me, her heart-shaped pixie face scrunched up. “I hate it when you do that shit,” she says, handing my phone back. “And don’t say do what. You know what—” she says before I can ask. “I hate it when you talk about yourself like—”
Conner comes out of his office like it’s on fire, calico wrapped around his legs. “Hey—” he’s peeling off his grease-stained coveralls to reveal a pair of worn jeans and T-shirt. “I’m heading over to the bar,” he says, giving his coveralls a jerk to get them over his boots. “Dec and Patrick are meeting me for a beer.” He tosses the coveralls in the direction of the washing machine in the corner and leaves before either of us can ask any questions. The cat strolls back into his office.
“Enjoy your beer,” Tess shouts after him. “I’ll just be here, posting your cat pictures.”
Conner flips her off before he disappears around the side of the building. As soon as he’s gone, she slams the hood on the truck and pulls a faded blue bandana from her back pocket. “Have you talked to Chase about it?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.” I lean against the Ford’s rear wheel-well and sigh. “But I’m going to have to.” A sex tape could damage Chase’s career. It wouldn’t matter that it’s not him. He took me to his latest opening. The same night the tape is time stamped. We were seen together—people will draw their own conclusions. “Miranda,” I mumble, rubbing circles against my temples with my fingertips. Chase tells her he wants to show my paintings a few days before a video that supposedly shows the two of us having sex surfaces? She’ll never take me seriously as an artist. No one will. “I’ll have to tell her too… I just don’t understand,” I say, dropping my hands. “he waited until Patrick and I—but how did he even know?”
“Sara.”
I look up to see Tess, hands buried in her bandana. “Sara?”
“Yeah—fucking Sara,” Tess scoffs, shoving her bandana back in her pocket. “Sara Howard—her dad is one of the Hs in LH&H—the law firm Douchey McSextape works for.”
Douchey McSextape. If I wasn’t fighting the urge to pass out, I’d be laughing my ass off. “How do you know that?”
Tess shrugs. “I heard Declan telling Con about how James and that other dickbag you were dating—the one who followed you into the bathroom—”
James says hi.
“Trevor.” I feel numb.
“Yeah, that one.” Tess waves an impatiently hand between us. “Anyway, they showed up at their game, Sunday morning. Sara was there too—she coaches a team in Patrick’s league—so, it has to be her, right?”
She was there Sunday afternoon. She saw me with Chase. She overheard the blow-up between Patrick and me—the one where I pretty much told the world we were hooking up. Despite the fact that she was Patrick’s girlfriend, I always liked her and I thought she liked me.
“He was there,” I tell her, building and alternate theory in my head. “At the opening Chase took me to... he tried to talk to me and Chase had him shut out of the event.”
“James?” Tess looks at me like I’m nuts. “You ran into your asshole ex and failed to mention it?”
“I…” I shake my head. “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.” Before I can say anything else, my phone vibrates in my hand. Another text from the same blocked number James used to send me the video.
Unknown: My office in one hour or the tape
goes viral. No one else. Just you.
I show the text to Tess.
“You can’t actually be thinking of going there by yourself,” Tess says, looking at me like I’ve suffered some sort of brain injury. “Seriously?”
“What else can I do,” I say, shoving my phone in the back pocket of my jeans.
“Tell Patrick what’s going on. Let me go with you. Call the police.” Tess is practically yelling, ticking her fingers off, one by one. “I can think of about a million other things you should do beside go see your sleazy ex-boyfriend by yourself—shall I continue?”
“I’ll be okay,” I tell her, even though I’m almost certain it’s not true. “I’ll text you before I go in. If I don’t call you fifteen minutes after that, you can tell anyone you want, okay?”
“No.” Tess shakes her head at me. “Not okay.”
Too bad it’s not her choice. “I’ll text you,” I say, before walking out the door.