“Like what?”
“Like maybe I don’t share everything I film with you guys.”
They laughed long and hard. I wrapped my arms around my middle, my breathing shallower, my legs feeling weak.
“Want a beer, man? Dad’s out of the office the rest of the day, let’s call it quits early and play Madden at your place.” There were some thuds, then two loud pops followed by slow hisses. Beer cans. I slid bonelessly to the floor by the window, picturing Jameson’s identical loft down the hall.
“For real, though. Sadie doesn’t suspect? How do you manage to get away with it?”
“I’m sweet. Considerate. Loving. The perfect boyfriend. Seriously, Jameson, if you tried it sometime, you’d probably get some action of your own instead of having to jack off to mine. Sadie eats that shit up. With Becca, though, it’s different. More raw, more intense, more—” Grunts and slapping sounds echoed off the high ceiling. A lone tear hesitated at the corner of my eye, waiting for permission to trail down my cheek.
“Yeah, Becca’s tits are pretty epic. And her legs—”
Asher interrupted. “And her ass and her mouth and her tongue. Yeah, dude, I know exactly what I’m doing with her.”
“Shit, man.” Awe radiated from Jameson. “You’ve, like, studied this or something?”
Asher laughed. “Yeah, dude, I totally studied fucking in college. And, trust me, I got an A.”
A phone rang. Not Asher’s ringtone. Numbly, I heard Jameson answer and, a few minutes later, the door slammed in the front of the loft. The guys leaving.
I was frozen on the floor, that stubborn tear still clinging to the hope that this was all a nightmare, and it didn’t really need to fall. I drew in a shaky breath, suspended in disbelief.
This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t Asher. This wasn’t the guy who rubbed my feet after a long day and packed me snacks to take to work. The guy who told me I was hot no matter what I was wearing. The guy that whispered in my ear at night that I was his other half and made sure I always had extra batteries and memory cards before a big shoot.
Shit. Footage. Hadn’t Jameson said something about footage?
My attention shifted to the laptop, and I moved across the room, grabbing the sleek computer and settling on the new sheets that I no longer planned on christening tonight.
Opening the screen, I hesitated at the password screen. What would he use?
My fingers pecked out the letters, and I hit enter. The home page appeared. Touchdown, I thought.
I ignored the software icons and looked at the file folders in a row across the bottom of his screen. The first four yielded nothing, but the one labeled Work Proposals had two subfolders labeled 1001 and 1002. After clicking on the first one, thumbnails of video files lined the screen, each meticulously labeled with dates. Opening the most recent, I saw an ass — my bare ass — walk across the screen. The camera was aimed at the bottom two-thirds of our bed. The bed I was sitting on.
In shock, I slid to the floor, away from what was playing on the screen. It was earlier in the summer. I could tell by my tan lines. I watched, stunned, as I crawled across the bed, over Asher’s naked body. You couldn’t see our faces. My hair was in a messy ponytail, and Asher kept his face turned toward the windows, away from the camera. I squinted at the screen. I had noticed that vague change in his behavior. How he often faced that way during sex in recent months.
Fucking bastard. And I did not mean that as a compliment. As my onscreen self lowered onto Asher’s erection, I closed the video.
I clicked on the other folder, the one labeled 1002. Again, video thumbnails neatly organized by date popped up in a box. Picking one at random, I double-clicked.
My bedroom, same view as before. Only, that wasn’t me bobbing between Asher’s spread legs. That big-breasted, pale skinned girl was my assistant, Rebecca, who I had considered a little sister.
I exited the video immediately, bile rising in my throat. The bottom of the file folder cheerfully informed me the folder contained forty-one items, dating back just over five months, to July fourth.
I gagged, dropped the computer, and rushed to the bathroom.
When I emerged thirty minutes later, throat raw from acid and tears burning my eyes, I walked back to the laptop and cradled it carefully in my arms, the metal still warm, before returning to the bathroom. Taking a deep breath, I tossed the computer in the bathtub. My steps never faltering, I retrieved all the tech gear I could find of Asher’s, filling the tub with shades of silver, gray, chrome, and black. Walking down the hall to the closet that held our washer and dryer, I snatched a bottle of detergent and a jug of bleach and returned to our bathroom. I drizzled the electronics with both liquids until the bottles were empty and then turned the shower on high, leaving the curtain wide open.
Packing my stuff haphazardly into whatever luggage and duffle bags I could find, I made four trips to my red Wrangler before I just couldn’t stand to be in that loft we’d shared any longer. Making one last trip to our bedroom, I dug out that shiny piece of coal from under Asshole’s trouser socks and tossed it on the middle of the bed.
Just so he would know I knew exactly what I was walking away from.
As I peeled off down the road, heading south toward the Carolina coast, I had one last fleeting thought. There was nothing left in that loft I would miss.
Except those sheets. Bastard owed me a set of sheets.
CHAPTER 1
I’m done being a vegetarian. As I eased into my morning run with little enthusiasm for the three miles left to go, I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other while avoiding the washed-up jellyfish that dotted the mostly empty beach. So done.
I needed to get laid. And soon. If I was starting to compare my currently meatless love life to a diet, I was in trouble.
My feet pounded over the wet sand, and I tried to focus on the sunrise coming up over the Atlantic instead of my appetite, but this morning, even the sun was pissing me off. It was colder than I had anticipated, the sun’s rays weren’t doing jack to warm me up, and the damn angle of the light reflecting off the water was partially blinding me. My sunglasses were sitting in the cup holder of my Jeep, forgotten as usual.
Tipping my water bottle, I took a swig, wishing it were hot coffee instead. I sighed and pushed my pace faster, skipping the slow jog I usually started with in favor of flat-out running, wanting my goose bumps to go away. I should have added a light jacket to my flimsy tank and shorts combo.
Popping my ear buds in, I looked down at my phone and debated which playlist to pick. They were loosely organized by letter instead of genre. I was thinking maybe M this morning. John Mayer, Maroon 5, Matt Nathanson, Jason Mraz, and Mat Kearney. My M playlist was one of my favorites. Maybe it would cheer me up. I selected it then tapped the random button.
“The Cave” by Mumford and Sons started, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Even my music was talking about being a meat eater. It was a sign. Time to move on.
I hadn’t had sex in five months. Five long, hard months. Damn it! My starved libido latched onto those adjectives with greedy fingers — long, hard, fuck. The motion of my thighs rubbing together as I ran made me crave a different kind of friction altogether.
I mean, I had been taking care of things myself, but I hadn’t had an actual sweating, panting, thrusting guy in that length of time. Shit, there I went again. Length. My vagina was lonely.