“I’ll give you all the time in the world,” he replies excitedly. “Well, at least a few days. I’m sure my parents will want to speak to you soon and I just really hope you make the right decision.”
With those annoying parting words, Brian finally moves around me and down the steps. As I watch him go, I feel kind of good knowing I have the upper hand. Knowing that I’m the one in charge of Brian’s fate instead of the other way around.
Too bad I have no idea what the hell to do with all of this power.
Chapter 30: Drunk Princess
“He broke up with me,” I whimper with a quivering lip.
“He didn’t break up with you. He’s giving you face. Mace. Shpace. Holy shit, what’s in this wine?” Ariel mutters, holding up our third empty bottle and peering down into it.
As soon as Brian left my house, I immediately went back inside and called PJ. He was worried about me, and rightfully so. I don’t think I managed to string together anything other curse words the entire ten minutes we were on the phone. I don’t even know how he understood what I was saying with all the “fucks” and “piece of shit asshole” that were flying around.
He asked me if I was okay. He told me to stay strong. He told me he’d come over as soon as he was finished at the club. And while he did show up during my hour of need, thinking back on it now, there was something off with him. I thought for sure he would curse louder than me and threaten to kick Brian’s ass. I mean, not that I need anyone to fight my battles for me and he knows that, but the gesture would have been nice. He still held me in his arms and reassured me that everything would be okay, but something was different about his behavior, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I was too fired up and too distracted with the decision I had to make to notice it at the time. Now that three days have gone by, all I can do is replay every word he said every touch he gave me.
I’ve called him a million times and texted him even more than that since he left me that night. He always replies, asking me if I’m okay, but that’s it. He hasn’t showed up, he hasn’t reached out to me on his own, and I don’t know whether to be sad or completely pissed off.
He made me fall in love with him. He encouraged me to be strong and independent. And now, when I need him the most, he’s keeping his distance, and that’s making me feel weak and needy. I need him to tell me again that everything will be okay. I need him to reassure me that this doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t change anything with me, I know that for sure. The first words out of Brian’s mouth made want to punch him in the face and then punch myself in the face for thinking I was ever in love with that man.
He makes me feel small and he makes me feel inadequate, everything PJ has never made me feel, until now.
“I don’t want or need space. I don’t understand. I told him when he was here that just the sight of Brian made me want to throw up, and he knows I kicked him out and how he’s staying at a hotel until I make up my mind. I just don’t understand why he won’t talk to me,” I complain, finishing off my glass of wine and holding out the glass for Ariel to pour more.
She grabs a new bottle we uncorked earlier and sloppily refills my glass, spilling some of the wine all over my hand, which I of course lick off as I bring the glass back up to my mouth.
“I can’t believe that piece of shit just showed up here out of the blue expecting you to lie for him. Tell me he looked like straight up asshole, all dirty with his clothes a wrinkled mess and a receding hairline, with a big old beer gut hanging over the waistband of his pants,” Ariel pleads as she starts swaying from side-to-side on the new couch in the front room, which I just bought with my stripping money.
It’s red and it’s bright and bold and I want to make out with it, it’s so pretty.
Tonight was supposed to be a celebration that the Naughty Princess Club is making enough money for me to catch up on bills and buy a new couch, along with being able to give Ariel and Belle a percentage of our earnings. But after the stress of the last few days, it’s turned into one big bitching session instead of a celebration.
“I really love my couch,” I muse, rubbing my palm over the soft suede.
Ariel snaps her fingers in front of my face.
“Fuckus! I mean, focus! You were just going to tell me how shitty Brian looks.”
“He didn’t look shitty,” I sigh. “He looked . . . like Brian. Stuffy and boring and judgy. And he won’t stop showing up here or calling. He wants to spend time with Anastasia. He actually had the nerve to tell me he missed his daughter and wanted to see her. I left it up to her, and of course she refused to go anywhere near him. I wanted to give her a big hug when she said she wanted nothing to do with him, but I don’t want to be one of those mothers.”
“Wanna one mudders?” Ariel slurs. “Jesus Christ take this wine away from me!”
I take the glass from her outstretched hand and set it down by my feet on the carpet, since I haven’t gotten around to buying new end tables yet.
“One. Of. What. Mothers?” Ariel tries again, enunciating each word carefully.
“One of those mothers who bad-mouths her ex in front of her child. I don’t want my opinion of him to skew hers,” I explain to her, flopping my head onto the back of the couch to stare up at the ceiling.
“Her opinion of him was skewed the minute he walked out on the two of you. Nothing you say is going to change that for her,” Ariel reassures me.
It still doesn’t stop me from worrying. Anastasia was doing so well, we were getting along beautifully, and PJ was able to bring her even more out of that hard shell she surrounded herself with when Brian left. Now she’s back to wearing all black and staying locked up in her bedroom. I hate Brian for doing this to her. I hate him for leaving in the first place, and I hate him for showing back up here out of the blue, expecting everything to be the way he left it.
“I saw her this morning at the grocery store when I was getting wine,” I mutter, wondering if my ceiling would look good with a coat of red paint to match the awesome new couch.
“Saw who?” Ariel asks, mimicking my pose and resting her head on the back of the couch next to me.
“Brittany.”
Just saying her name makes me want to throw the glass of wine that’s still clutched in my hand across the room.
“The twenty-one-year-old babysitter he ran away with?!”
I nod my head and take a few deep, calming breaths as I think about our exchange and how she came bouncing up to me in the wine aisle, talking to me like we were old friends and I didn’t entrust her with my daughter’s care for years while she screwed my husband behind my back and then fled the country with him.
“She’s got some perky new double Ds and her lips have so much collagen in them I was afraid they’d explode all over my face when she was talking to me.”
“Well, at least now we know where all that money went he stole from his parents,” Ariel muses. “New tits and lips for the babysitter.”
I never even realized the deadline Vincent gave me to come up with the money had come and gone without my notice. I was too busy with PJ and the Naughty Princess Club and catching up on my own bills to worry about him and his misplaced anger and accusations. And now that Brian is home and has told them that ridiculous lie about being kidnapped, they’ve obviously hashed all of that out on their own and realize I’m no longer to blame, and that’s why I still haven’t heard from him. Which is pretty shitty considering I deserve a goddamn apology, at the very least, from Vincent and Claudia.
Regardless of that, this also means I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Business is good, I’m no longer drowning in debt, and Brian can do whatever the hell he wants, as long as he leaves me out of it. I’m not going to pick up the phone and call Vincent and Claudia and help him fabricate his lie, but if I’m asked directly, I suppose I can be the bigger person and do whatever I can to help him repair his relationship with Anastasia, as long as he knows I’m doing this for her and not to
save his ass from going to prison. I’m not going to keep him from his daughter, but I’m also not going to push it with her. She’s old enough to make up her own mind about whether or not she wants to give her father a second chance. I should be happy that I stood my ground with Brian and only respond to his text messages when it pertains to our daughter, but I’m not. Nothing about this makes me happy because PJ isn’t here. And I don’t understand why.
“You should just go over there and confront him,” Ariel says suddenly, lifting her head from the couch.
“To Brian’s hotel? Um, hell no. The shit show that happened on my front porch is all the confrontation I need, thank you very much.”
“Not that asshole, the other asshole.”
“PJ? He’s not an asshole. Like you said, he’s just giving me space,” I tell her.
I hate that word, space. How does putting distance between you and someone you claim to care about help anything? It doesn’t. It just leaves more room for doubt and to let that person’s imagination run wild. I know he cares about me, but maybe this is all too much for him. He’s never had a serious relationship and all of a sudden, he’s dating a single mom with a teenager who is sweet, but also hell on wheels, who desperately needs a father figure in her life. Then the piece of shit ex-husband shows up, and he realizes he can’t deal with that on top of everything else.
“Space is bullshit. You two need to be a united front. I know you’re strong enough to handle Brian on your own, but you shouldn’t have to. You found someone who has your back and believes in you, and he should be by your side, giving you support during this shit storm,” Ariel tells me heatedly.
Before I can lie my way through another sorry excuse for why PJ has been avoiding me, Ariel is up and off the couch, grabbing her phone from the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting you an Uber. You’re going to march yourself up to his house, knock on his front door, and tell him to get his head out of his ass,” Ariel replies, her phone pinging a few seconds later. “Done. Uber will be here in five minutes.”
I want to protest, but she’s right. I’m not the same person I was a few months ago and I’m not about to keep this space between us and not explain to him what’s going on. Not tell him that he’s the one I want, as long as he can handle the temporary drama in my life.
Because it will be temporary. Brian is my past. My stupid, regret-filled, boring past. PJ is my future.
* * *
“You’re really pretty and nice and I looooove you.”
“Cindy, stop petting the Uber driver’s hair,” Ariel complains, grabbing my arm and yanking me back onto the seat next to her.
“It’s okay, miss. Wouldn’t be the first time I was pet by a pretty, drunk lady,” the driver responds, giving us a smile in his rearview mirror.
“Awwww he said I’m pretty,” I muse, resting my head on Ariel’s shoulder.
“He also said you were drunk. I probably shouldn’t have encouraged you to bring a bottle of wine with us.”
“Did you know drinking wine improves your sex life?” Belle asks, leaning forward in the seat on the other side of Ariel to look at us. “An Italian study showed that women who drink two glasses of wine daily enjoy physical pleasure much more intensely than women who don’t drink wine at all.”
As soon as our Uber driver picked us up, we called Belle and told her to sneak out of her dad’s basement and wait for us in her driveway. Much to our surprise, she told us she was at the library and that we should pick her up there. What she was doing at the library at this hour of the night is beyond me, and now that she seems like she’s back to her old self of spouting off random facts that have to do with what we’re discussing, I’m sure she’s fine. And honestly, I’m too drunk to think about that right now.
I hold up the empty bottle and shake it around in the air in the dark backseat.
“Allllll gone! Looks like I get all the intense physical pleasure to myself. Yummy in my tummy.”
“Jesus, you drank the entire thing?!” Ariel questions in shock.
I nod, but quickly realize I shouldn’t do that when a little bit of vomit comes up my throat and I have to swallow it back down.
“We’re here,” our driver announces as the car comes to a stop.
I quickly turn my head to look and smack it against the window, letting out a groan of pain as I smack and paw at the door handle, unable to get it to work.
Ariel reaches around me and opens the door easily, shoving me out of the car as her and Belle follow right behind me.
Leaning against the door after Belle closes it, I stare up at PJ’s house. I forgot how pretty it was, especially at night with the spotlights shining on it and little solar light lanterns lining the front walk. I haven’t been here since the night of that disastrous birthday party. My house is closer to his club and since I need to take Anastasia to and from school every day, it was just easier for us to always be there.
A part of me thinks it’s probably not a good idea I’m here now, when I can barely stand up on my own and PJ’s house suddenly turns into ten PJ houses as I have to blink my eyes to get everything to focus.
“It’s like a castle,” I whisper as Ariel grabs my arm and starts dragging me up the driveway and along the front walk while Belle walks quietly behind us.
“Yes, and you’re Drunk Princess, coming home to get her Prince Charming.”
She helps me up the steps of the front porch with minimal stumbling, propping me up against the side of the house as Belle rings the bell. I hear the muffled chime coming from inside the house as the wine and nerves pooling in my stomach start fighting to the death, making me press my hand over my mouth.
“Do you remember what we rehearsed on the way over here?” Ariel asks.
I nod my head, but quickly stop when the front porch starts to spin, slowly dropping my hand from my face.
“Tell him he’s my future. Tell him I don’t want Brian. Tell him to stick it in my ass,” I reply with a giggle.
“Yep, you’re good to go.”
She grabs my arm and pulls me away from the house, tucking me against her side when we hear footsteps from inside.
PJ opens the door, and I have the urge to lean forward and lick his face. It looks like he just got out of the shower. He’s wearing my favorite pair of well-worn jeans, which ride low on his hips, and a T-shirt that molds itself to all of his delicious muscles. The messy spikes of his dark brown hair are still damp.
“Hi!” I greet him with a loud burst of excitement. “My future Brian can stick it in my ass.”
Ariel and Belle groan, and PJ looks back and forth among all of us in confusion. I attempt to be all sexy and waltz toward him, but I trip over the doorstep and smack right into his chest. His arms quickly wrap around me, holding me tightly to him and stopping me from falling to the ground.
“Our work here is done. She’s all yours. Make sure you hold her hair back when she pukes,” Ariel tells PJ as I keep my cheek pressed to his chest.
“Don’t break her heart or I’ll break your face,” Belle adds in an unusual showing of balls as she points her finger at him.
I blow them a sloppy kiss as they link arms, turn, and jog down the steps to the Uber driver still waiting in the driveway.
With his arms still around me, PJ pulls me into the foyer and closes the door.
“You smell yummy,” I tell him, taking a big whiff of his T-shirt before he unwraps his arms from around me and gently grabs my upper arms, pushing me away from him so he can look down at me.
I’m so busy trying to remember how to use my legs and also stop myself from sniffing him again that I don’t even notice the person standing in the foyer behind PJ until she makes her presence known with a loud huff of annoyance.
“I didn’t know you were expecting company.”
Motherfucking Malibu Barbie Melissa glares at me over PJ’s shoulder, and I have just enough clarity in my drunken brain to smack my hands against PJ??
?s chest and jerk myself away from him.
“Are you kidding me?!” I screech, wishing my voice sounded all raspy and hot like stupid Melissa’s instead of like someone just stepped on a cat.
“Cynthia, it’s not—”
I cut PJ off with a raise of my hand. My heart almost hurts more hearing him use my full name instead of his nickname for me, when it should be breaking completely in half because I found another woman in his home. Another woman whom he claimed was the type of woman he used to be into.
Liar, liar, pants I’m gonna burn to the fucking ground. Poetry is hard when you’re drunk.
“So, I guess now I know why you haven’t returned my calls or my texts the last few days.”
When my voice hitches over the burn in the back of my throat as I hold back the tears, I almost wish I were screeching again. I’d rather continue being pissed off at him right now than look like an idiot in front of him and the slutty woman currently smirking at me from behind him.
I can’t believe I thought he looked so hot when he opened the door, looking like he just got out of the shower. A shower he probably shared with miss perfect tits and ass over there.
“Melissa showed up here five minutes before you did, and she was just leaving,” PJ growls in annoyance, his eyes never leaving mine.
I don’t want to believe him. I’d be a fool to believe him, considering what Brian did under my nose for all those years. But he continues completely ignoring Melissa while she huffs and puffs and stomps her foot and practically throws a temper tantrum in his foyer, until she realizes he’s not going to say another word to her.
“I can see you have your hands full. I’ll stop by another time,” she finally says, giving me another murderous glare as she grabs her purse from the side table, flings open the door, and stomps her stiletto heels against the floor as she walks outside.
“If you stop by another time, I will shove my foot up your ass!” I shout after her. “I may be small, but I’m scrappy!”
With that, I reach over and slam the door shut.
When I look back at PJ, he’s giving me a small, sad smile.