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“You let her ride your bike?!” Nivea yelled.
I glanced up at Camryn. “Please tell me she’s not walking over here.”
Camryn looked up and shook her head. “She’s not walking…”
I looked over my shoulder to see Nivea stomping her way over. Carver, who’d never stopped drinking his beer during the entire show that Nivea had just put on, followed directly behind, a look of almost pain on his face.
“Carver doesn’t look like he appreciates Nivea’s shit,” I mused.
“Carver is a pushover and never could decide between me and Nivea.” She sighed. “The only reason I agreed to go out on a few dates with him was that I liked how he finally grew a pair and asked me out. Honestly, I think I only said yes out of spite because Nivea didn’t think he ever would.”
“Why is that something y’all talked about?” I wondered. “I thought y’all didn’t talk.”
“We don’t,” she amended. “But she talks, and the other teachers listen. Satan Gillingham…”
“Her name isn’t Satan, it’s Neta,” I laughed.
“Anyway, as I was saying, Satan Gillingham liked to listen to everything that went on. She blends in well, you see?” she continued. “Anyway, Satan…”
“Why are you calling her Satan?” I asked. “Why does everyone call her Satan?”
“Because of her married name. It was Diablo. She changed it when her divorce was finalized,” she explained.
I rolled my eyes, then lifted my hand and urged her to continue.
“Anyway, she blends in well. Her ex-husband taught her how to do that so she didn’t get his wrath turned on her, you know?” She paused, waiting for me to acknowledge her.
I nodded, not liking that part of the explanation, but knowing that it was at least somewhat true. Neta was a sweet young woman—about three years younger than me—and honestly looked like she would blow over with a harsh wind. She was also really good at hiding in plain sight among the students and, obviously, among the teachers.
“Anyway, Neta overheard a conversation between Nivea and another teacher,” she finished. “She didn’t think that I would say yes, and she also didn’t think that Carver would ask me seeing as I was overbearing.”
I sighed as I took the food from her hand. “Get on. Let’s go before she gets all the way over here.”
“Too late,” Camryn said as she eyed something over my shoulder. “She’s running.”
I looked to where she was looking and winced. She was, indeed, now running.
I had to admit, she ran pretty damn well seeing as she was in high heels that would’ve caused most people to break an ankle by now.
“How could you do this to me?” Nivea snapped as she finally arrived.
I looked over at Camryn, waiting for her to answer.
“Is she talking to me or you?” I wondered.
Camryn’s lips quirked. “I’m thinking she’s talking to you, honey.”
I liked when she called me ‘honey.’
“I’m talking to both of you,” Nivea seethed. “What did I ever do to deserve y’all humiliating me this way?”
I really had no clue what she was talking about.
“Nivea, sweetie.” Camryn sounded so falsely sweet that I wanted to laugh. “I’m not sure if you understand this or not, but it’s damn near a common day occurrence for people to break up and stop seeing each other. Though, from what I understand, what you had with Flint here wasn’t even a relationship. It was more of a mutual understanding that was based solely on sexual gratification. You don’t get humiliated unless you have something to be humiliated about…which you don’t. At this point, you’re making this out to be something so sordid—my and Flint’s relationship—that I don’t know what to say to you to make this ‘all right’ in your eyes.”
I groaned inwardly, knowing that Nivea was about to lose her shit.
She didn’t like to be embarrassed, even if the slight was only ever done in her mind and not anybody else’s.
That had been one of the problems that I always encountered with her during our very short time together.
The imaginary things that I’d done wrong.
Like the one time she caught me talking to Raleigh during school hours about doing something with her and Ezra over the weekend without first consulting her about it. She hadn’t talked to me for four days, and I hadn’t even realized that she was giving me the cold shoulder until I’d arrived back at school over the weekend to hear from Raleigh that she was sorry she’d caused me and Nivea problems for not inviting Nivea to the get-together.
Needless to say, I’d dodged a bullet getting away from her when I did.
Not that she’d see it that way because she saw it as a betrayal that I’d moved on to Camryn as fast as I did.
“Were you cheating on me the whole time?” Nivea growled.
I looked at her.
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t. Though, like Camryn was saying, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t consider myself to have been ‘with you’ at all. There’s a difference between a relationship and what we had.”
